Thursday, July 30, 2009

Joe Lauzon: "MMA is Not Dog Fighting"

Joe Lauzon recently took to his personal website to combat an article by Boston Globe columnist Pete Funt. Funt likened MMA to Dog Fighting, something everyone knows the brutality of. Lauzon is incredibly articulate in his rebuttal; I'm glad he is an ambassador for our sport.

The following is the article Joe posted on JoeLauzon.com:




Not everyone is on board with Mixed Martial Arts yet, but more and more sports fans are getting accustomed to our sport. With the increased popularity of the sport it’s becoming mainstream and it’s just getting started.



To the uninformed, people who aren’t into MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), the fights seem unconventional compared to more widely accepted arts like boxing, wrestling and karate. Oddly enough, MMA is a combination of the three with elements of many other arts incorporated. The sport has evolved many times over to most effectively control, submit or knock out a true resisting opponent.



I compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which for most involved with the sport simply call the UFC. It’s not the Ultimate Street Fight and it’s not the Ultimate Dog Fight. I might be offended by the writers comments if he were more informed or took the time to actually research the facts. If the writer knew how much safer the UFC was than boxing, he would not have likened it to dog fighting.



As part of an upcoming sport, it’s my job to not only fight in the ring but also be an ambassador to the sport. There are over 200 fighters under contract in the UFC, which is the NFL of Mixed Martial Arts promotions. Many of these fighters come from diverse backgrounds and are graduates from some of the best schools in the country.



Miguel Torres of East Chicago, Indiana paid his way through school by fighting while others were tending bar. Miguel earned a degree in marketing from Purdue University. Miguel is the current WEC Featherweight champion.



Rich Franklin is a former math teacher from Cincinatti with a masters degree in Education and a former UFC Middleweight champion, Jim Miller graduated from Virginia Tech and Brock Lesnar was an NCAA wrestling champion and is the current UFC Heavyweight Champion. Some have masters degrees while others have bachelors. There are really too many to list.



Frank Mir was raised in a true martial arts family and earned a black belt in Karate at the age of 12. Frank won a state wrestling championship in high school at 17 and earned a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu in three and a half short years. Franks stage eventually became an octagon surrounded by plastic coated chain link fence. It’s within this octagon that he shows the world his martial arts skills and shares his valuable message of perseverance with the world as he is a former UFC Heavyweight Champion. You would be hard pressed to find a more articulate man in any professional sport.



Our sport has been likened to dog fighting which anyone will say is cruel. Dogs have no choice and are bred to fight, injure and mame the other dog. They are kept in poor conditions and are anything but a family pet.



Fighters on the other hand make up their own minds regarding their career path, just like you have done. I choose to compete in mixed martial arts for the competition of it all. I love to compete and the UFC has the best fighting conditions, best referees, the best doctors and an outstanding safety record. Fights are stopped at the first sign of a fighter being unable to defend himself or the first sing that the fighter does not want to continue.



It is my job to not only inform the original writer but also all of those that he has misinformed. I appreciate that everyone has their own opinion but I get to express mine as well. I do not believe the writer has been to a dog fight, nor has he been to a UFC fight, or met with a 40 year old boxer with a slur from taking thousands of shots to the head. I also doubt he has taken a look at a punch count showing a comparison of what a mixed martial arts fighters takes versus that of a boxer.



Boxing averages 11 deaths per year. In the history of Mixed Martial Arts, there has been 1 death in the United States and it was a fighter who had a pre-existing blood clot within the brain that was not reported to officials.



Long before its incarnation that we see today, pankration was the original form of mixed martial arts. It was truly the first fighting system in human history and was used by Ancient Greeks back in 648 BC. US Soldiers today practice mixed martial arts to prepare for hand to hand combat. Myself and many other UFC fighters have gone all around the world (Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc) to work with and help train our nations troops.



Tighter rules along the way have helped, in addition to strict supervision by a state appointed sanctioning body. Fighters are required to go through a laundry list of medical testing before every fight. Before my first fight in the UFC I had to see about 7 different doctors and specialists just to get licensed. I had to have a physical, blood work for Hepatitis and HIV, an MRI, an ophthalmologic exam and a few EEG’s. In some cases, I saw specialists both at home and then the commission’s own specialists. It turns out, fighter safety is always the number one priority.



Its a poor comparison between sports where fighter safety is so important to dog fighting where safety is the last thing on anyones mind.



I can’t help but liken the article to the way a lot of lazy college students write papers. They form their uninformed opinion and then write their paper based on their own preconceived notions. Its pretty easy to run a quick online search for information on the web to support your point of view.



Generally though, even lazy college students are bright enough to use information that is less than 10 years old to back up their claims. I eagerly await this particular writer’s future shocking pieces about Bill Clinton’s extra-maritial affairs and how all computers are going to go haywire for Y2k. Let’s get with the times.



Writers among others, loves to sensationalize things. This case is no different. This particular Boston Globe writer is calling our sport “human dog fighting” while another LA Times author writes about the crowd being hungry for blood. No doubt, these two writers will be referencing and quoting one another for a long time about the barbarism that is our sport. In the day and age when everyone has on online blog, you can always find someone who shares your opinion. Regardless of what the ignorant claim, Mixed Martial Arts fights are between two willing competitors that at the professional level have spent considerate amounts of time improving their skills in a number of Olympic sports.



These sports include boxing, wrestling, karate, judo, tae kwon do and jiu-jitsu. All ages and levels of experience are encouraged to participate in these sports. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was started by Rorion Gracie to show the world the validity of his family’s style of jiu-jitsu. The best representatives of all these other martial arts were pitted against one another and Rorion’s family were the victors in the end.



The UFC was never about a blood sport even though the original promoters let if flirt with that line. Back then, the sport was new and there was no regulation. The times have changed and modern day mixed martial arts has grown and is very safe. The sport is highly regulated and is one of the safest in the world.





Please be sure and let The Boston Globe know how much you DISAGREE with Funt's accusations and comparison.

Main Number: 617.929.2000
Location: 135 Morrissey Blvd. Boston, MA 02125
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 55819 Boston, MA 02205-5819

Renee Loth -Editor
Newsroom / Editorial / Administration
The Boston Globe 617.929.3035
e-mail loth@globe.com

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Top 59 Women's MMA Fighters

Below is an excerpt and link to a list of the top 59 Women's MMA fighters by MMARising.com.

Best Of The Best:

Megumi "Mega Megu" Fujii (18-0-0)Once rivalled by Tara LaRosa for the title of the #1 female fighter in mixed martial arts, Fujii has seemingly taken sole possession of that distinction...

Tara LaRosa (17-1-0)The first and only BodogFIGHT Women's Bantamweight Champion was left without a promotion to compete for when BodogFIGHT dissolved soon after her title win...



Yuka "Vale Tudo Queen" Tsuji (22-1-0)Easily one of the most decorated female fighters in history, the 1997 Asian Championship Bronze Medallist in Freestyle Wrestling (51 kg.) has held three major titles in her mixed martial arts career...

"Princess" Satoko Shinashi (29-2-2)The reigning DEEP Women's Flyweight Champion has had an interesting 15 months...

Miku "Supernova" Matsumoto (21-4-0)Perhaps no other female in Japan has made as much of an impact in female mixed martial arts over the past two years as Matsumoto...

Sarah Kaufman (10-0-0)Wasting absolutely no time, Kaufman stepped right back inside the cage as a late replacement for Kim "Sugar Free" Couture when she battled wrestling standout Miesha "Takedown" Tate at Strikeforce Challengers 1 on May 15th...

Top Contenders:

Takayo Hashi (12-1-0): Having already avenged her lone career defeat to Hitomi Akano, Hashi has quickly become a force to be reckoned with in Japan...

Roxanne Modafferi (13-4-0): 2008 was good to Modafferi, as the Japanese-trained American picked up two victories in two tries...

Marloes Coenen (16-3-0): Coenen has experienced a rather turbulent period in her career over the past 15 months...


To read the entire list visit MMARising.com
I thought it was really interesting and wanted to share it with you all.



Miss something? Questions? Comments? E-mail me:

samantha.lynn.johnson@gmail.com

Monday, July 13, 2009

20 questions

20 Questions with SkySkrape of TapouT
Courtesy: TapouT.com

1.When did you fall in love with MMA?
I think the very first time I ever saw it. I had heard about it I was in high school and my brother said, “Yeah, we’re going to watch the UFC fight,” but I thought he said U-S-C as in the Trojans and I said, “Why are you going to watch the football game?!” I thought, “My brother doesn’t watch football. What’s he doing that for?” Then he said, “No, no, The UFC, the ultimate fighting where they fight in the cage and such. So I went with him and watched it and I saw this little Brazilian dude who was submittin’ everybody and I thought, “Okay, just let me check it out.” I saw this guy named Royce Gracie who was pretty much wearing pajamas, or what I thought were, I was like, “Why’s this guy wearing pajamas?” He’s this little, little tiny guy fighting big ol’ muscular guys and he was chokin’ them and hitting them and I thought, “That’s something I can get into because the smallest guy out there is whoopin’ everybody’s ass. So I kind of fell in love with it the first time I saw it. That was in ’94 I think it was.. mid ’94.

2. Badunkadunks, boxers or comando?
Actually, both. Right now I’m comando. I have nothing on. But, I wear my tighty whiteys, my duhduntaduhs, that’s all I have actually.



3. You have a 1966 Chevy Nova Wagon that you plan to drop a LS1 Corvette engine (meaty)...
I just bought a 67 Nova. I just did the interior on the ’66 Nova wagon and then I’m putting the Corvette motor in it.

Would you rather a 1933 Roadster or a 1970 muscle car?
A ‘70s muscle car. I HATE ‘30s roadsters, I hate, hate them. MMA is my passion, my love, but cars –muscle cars- is my second thing. I have 7 or 8 old cars, muscle cars so that’s what I do in my off time if I ever have any.

So would you do a Chevy 454 or a 428 Mustang or do you not care as long as there is horsepower?
I only have Chevys. I have a ’63 Impala, a ’55 Chevy and those others. That’s all I have is Chevys. All small blocks, no big blocks.

4. You guys have so much experience going out to little shows and seeing up-and-comer guys. Name three guys (or girls) that we should all have on our radar.
There’s a kid out of Greg Jackson’s gym named John Dodson . He’s probably the most athletic fighter I’ve ever seen; even more athletic than St-Pierre, St-Pierre trains with them you know[Greg Jackson’s camp]. Dodson is probably 5’2” and fights at 125# and he’s built like, like St-Pierre but in a 5’2” package. Him and also Julie Kedzie out of Greg Jackson’s gym. She fought Gina Carano a couple of years ago, and actually the night she fought Gina Carano was the night she met Greg Jackson. She moved down to Greg Jackson’s right after that to train with him and I would say if Julie and Carano fought again Julie would beat her. She’s just gotten that much better and Greg Jackson’s so great at what he does, he just makes people champions so I’d say those two and the third would be … you know what, I don’t even know. There are just so many up-and-comers that aren’t getting noticed. Like the other night, Shannon Gugerty fought Matt Grice in the UFC. Matt Grice was on The Ultimate Fighter, Shannon Gugerty trains out of San Diego and put Matt Grice to sleep with a guillotine. He’s another great up-and-comer.

5. Now, name three guys that you have a man-crush on (GSP is implied).
I don’t have a man crush on anybody. I have a man-crush on Punkass, I have a man-crush on Mask, and I have a man-crush on myself. Hahaha… let’s do this, let’s do this. I’ll say Greg Jackson, Mark DellaGrotte and Tommy “Trauma” Sauer who is a fighter out of Florida. Three of the best guys you’ll ever meet.

6. Most memorable fight you've seen?
You know I’ve been asked this questions quite a bit lately but I didn’t really answer them, mostly because there have been so many. But one I have wanted to say is BJ Penn and Caol Uno when BJ knocked him out in like 10-11 seconds, something like that. The memorable part wasn’t him [BJ] knocking him [Caol] out, but if you were in the arena you saw BJ knock him out, hop the fence, and sprint back up the ramp-cause back in that day the had the ramp runnin’ down the middle- and he ran. He was so hyped and excited he hopped the fence, ran back up the ramp, and ran back into his locker room, all within 15 seconds. I thought, “Oh my god, that’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen!” So Dana made him come back out, and the athletic commission made him come back out because they were thinking, “Oh, he might have had something under his gloves like a roll of nickels or something,” because he knocked him out and sprinted out of there. I was thinking, “Oh, please don’t come back, that would be so huge if he didn’t come back.” But they made him come back. For me, that was probably one of the most memorable.

7. Craziest thing you’ve ever done?
We were filming out in Chicago, at Jeff Curran’s gym, and before we went in we had stopped on the way and bought a ton of fireworks and had them in our motorhome. Before we went in-Punkass had no idea what was going on this was Mask and myself- we grabbed these huge bottle rockets, they were probably a foot and a half long and the actually rocket part was a good six inches. It looked like…it was bigger than a roll of quarters the rocket part was. So I hid it up under my sleeve as we were walking in the gym. Everybody was standing around just kind of talking about things while Mask goes to the front of the gym and sets this bottle rocket up, kind of on the ground but on the leg of a chair. It was aimed right at the crowd of people which was probably a good 50-60 feet away. I knew it was coming so I put my back towards Charles [Mask] where the firework was coming from ‘cause I thought, “If it’s going to hit me I’ll just let it hit me in the back.” So we’re talking, talking, talking and it was one of theose bottle rockets that scream, really loud when it was launched. All the sudden I hear that sound and I tought, “Oh shit, here it comes.” It was also one of the bottle rockets that when it blew up, it blew up bright colors. So it shoots right past me, I turn and cover my chin with my shoulder as I turn away and it exploded all these colors were flying in the air. Then, I hear somebody screaming bloody murder, hoping up and down on one foot, and it’s Bart Palaszewski. The bottle rocket hit him in his big toe. The worst part of it was, was Bart had a fight-it was when Bart was fighting in the IFL- it hit him in the toe and he’s screaming and yelling, falling on the mat and rolling around. I just thought, “Oh my god, he’s not going to be able to fight.” So I just start laughing like, okay, let’s just try and laugh this off, laugh our way out of it and Mask is doing the same thing. Yeah, that was the craziest stuff I think we’ve ever done.

8. You’ve now been with TapouT for just over 12 years. What do you see as happening in the future?
Continued growth and trying to help make this sport the biggest sport in the world. Obvioiusly, things are super tough with the passing of Charles [Mask] not only business-wise, but him being my best friend, he was like a big brother to me. He was more than just a partner; he was so many things to me. With that loss, things are obviously tough, I honestly don’t know how I can do it and how I get through it and keep going. I think maybe it’s because I know he would want me to…I think, I don’t know. He said to me numerous times that if anything ever happened to me, he’d say, “God forbid anything ever happen to you, but if it did, bro I’d check out, I’d sell my part of the company.” I keep hearing that in my head but I just think trying to help people, that’s the main objective. To help people, grow the sport, try to help the fighters of the sport –the underdogs-. I see this sport being the biggest sport in the world and I see Tapout-Punkass and myself- being right there with it, along side of it. I think that was shown this past weekend with Charles [Mask] being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Those guys, Dana and Lorenzo, they saw how influential Charles was to everything, to this sport period. That was a great honor that they did that.


9. Can you think of any one fighter that you originally doubted but maybe Mask or Punkass thought they would be great… and they actually turned out to surprise you?

No, honestly, I don’t do that. I don’t look at fighters and doubt them. You can’t look at somebody and think they’re not going to be good. If we’d have thought that when we saw Josh Barnett for the first time he was 330# and he looked like a fat, sloppy, just a big kid. You’d think he was going to get in there and get his ass whooped, flip forward to a year and a half later, Charles and I are walking him down the ramp and he was about to fight Randy Couture for the heavyweight belt and he beat him up and stopped him in the second round. So, over the years you just learn it doesn’t matter what somebody looks like as long as they are training hard and they’re dedicated. You just don’t doubt anybody.

10. What’s the “softer” side of SkySkrape?
I spend every moment I can with my daughter; I have a 13-year-old daughter. As big as a dork you see me acting sometimes, a lot of that comes from her; most of it’s from Mask, but a lot of it’s from her. I told her after Charles past away, I said, “You’re the only one that I can act, the way I acted with Charles, with.” Stealing the little bit of make-up I let her wear, and putting it on and trying to embarrass her in front of her friends…I guess that’s the softer side of me.

11. Ideal vacation destination?
You know, we’ve only had one “vacation” in the last 12 years and we went to Cabo [San Lucas, Mexico]. We all flew down there and hung out in Cabo for about 4-5 days. No cell phones, no body was allowed to bring a cell phone or computers, none of that. We just got to hang out and relax and recharge the batteries.

12. What’s the one thing you can’t leave home without?
There’s three: 1. A little tube of Chapstick…I think from going to Vegas so much my lips get all chapped. Then, I also carry this little dog tag in my pocket, it was something of Charles’ and I wear this necklace. A friend of mine made these necklaces after Charles past, it’s this little urn, it’s got a Tapout logo on it and it says “Mask.” I made a couple.

13. Favorite sport… outside of MMA?
Basketball, basketball in general, I like basketball period. I’ll watch guys basketball, college basketball, I’ll even watch some women’s basketball.

14. Who is the one fighter that you would give your right (or left) nut to see fight? What’s the match up you’d like to see?
I wouldn’t give those up for anything. To say now-a-days there’s not really a match up that’d I’d give up anything for. There’s always going to be great fights; every fight there’s a great fight. There are those monumental fights here and there that are big things...but I definetly wouldn’t give up one of my nuts for anything.

15. There’s a five way figth between: Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme, or Chuck Norris… who wins?
Uhhhh…c’mon now!? Chuck Norris would whoop all their asses. Everybody knows Chuck Norris would whoop their asses.

16. Aside from the TapouT gyms, what’s the best MMA gym you’ve seen?
You know what I like, I love to see these big huge gyms popping up. Our gyms a big huge gym, Big John McCarthy has a big huge gym, but I also like to see guys like Mark DellaGrotte out in Boston. He has a small-I can barely walk in there-the roof is so low I have to duck my head to walk in that place. You get in there with these guys and they start working out and the sweat starts building up and the place gets muggy and there’er no windows in the place so you can’t see out. Once you start getting in these nice, big gyms, you get in there and everything’s all laid out for you and there’s showers and a red carpet for ya. Then it gets too easy, too comfortable. But when you’re in these old gyms with the old vibe, that’s where it all originate from. I like those gyms. I like those feels better than the big huge gyms.

17. You’re INCREDIBLY fan-friendly. Does it ever get to be just too much?
No, I’m pretty much a ham, so I love it. It’s something we’ve always wanted. When we first started this company we wanted to be rockstars in our own way. We kind of had to become our own marketing in a way because we couldn’t afford to pay fighters…and we wanted to be rockstars. You’ve just got to deal with it, if you don’t want to deal with it just don’t go out.

18. Finish this sentence… I’m totally not gay but…
…I like guys? Hahaha, just kidding…everytime I get out of the shower I lotion my body and put face lotion on my face. Charles was very metro, I got a lot of things from him.

19. What’s the one thing you could never get enough of?
Free time! I can never get enough free time. I’ll watch T.V. but only certain channels. The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery, Speed. I never watch the news. There’s never anything good on there.

20. What’s this “pilot” about? What networks are shopping it?
With everything that’s happened they want to reshoot more. The format of the show has changed, obviously, the dynamic of the show has changed. Just the different elements, they want to refilm it and try to resell it.

Are you not working with Versus anymore or is it up in the air?
It’s up in the air. I did an interview for Versus the other day and it was kind of weird. We love Versus for taking a chance on us a lot, a lot of other people passed on our show, they took a chance and put us on. Our first season did great. Between the first and second season they replayed the show a billion times, but not once since the second season ended have they replayed a show. So I don’t know what’s going on there. I don’t know if we pissed somebody off or what… we don’t know what’s going on.

Is it going to be basically the same?
Sort of, yeah; acting like a jack ass. Punkass getting irritated; trying to find fighters.




Questions? Comments? E-mail me:

samantha.lynn.johnson@gmail.com

Find me....

I've been a bit inconsistent lately in posting my other writings here. For those who are interested visit the sites I write for at:


MMAGirls.net

FightJungle.com

OffTheRadarMMA.com

Brock Lesnar: Good or Bad for MMA?

Brock Lesnar is a legitimate athlete: two-time NCAA All-American, two-time Big Ten Conference Champion, and the 2000 NCAA heavyweight champion with a record of 106–5 overall in four years of college, is nothing you accomplish by half-assing it. However, many argue he has dominated his five MMA fights on sheer size alone (myself included). His post fight antics left many wondering: "Is Lesnar good for MMA?" Between flipping the crowd off, saying he's going to go bang his wife, and insulting UFC sponsor, Bud Light by stating he was going to relax with a Coors Light; we can only guess what will be next.


This is my opinion only,but I am not a fan of Lesnar. Unfortunately, I see few people beating him because his is so good at manipulating his opponents and using his size to over power them. Few come to mind when I think of an opponent that can beat him: Carwin, Cain, Lashley. All have a good chance but, without giving Lesnar too much credit, it will be a hard fight. My only reaction to his post fight rant was "Classy" with an eye roll and the most sarcastic tone you can imagine. How can you flip off someone that just gave you $400,000 (disclosed amount).

Shane Carwin seems to agree with me. He blogged about Lesnar on his website (Shane-Carwin.com).

The quote is as follows (spelling and grammatical errors were not corrected):

“I cannot say I was surprised by anything that night other then Brock’s reaction to beating a very tough Frank Mir. Frank is a legend and a great guy who got out powered not out classed. The sponsor issue,you need to talk to your manager not the fans or Dana. The flipping off of the fans that just lined your pocket with millions of dollars is just LAME. He may be a Champion but he has a long ways to go before he earns the respect of a Champion. The fans are why we do this Brock,this sport is not about fat paychecks and drama it is about hard work and sacrifice for a shot to do what you did last night. It doesn’t matter how much money you make if you can’t earn your peers respect and the respect and love of the greatest sporting fans in the world. We have no scripts in this sport, no pre-determined earning amount and no pre-determined outcomes. It doesn’t matter if you win or loose it matters how you win or loose…. This is the greatest sport int he world and most of the athletes in it deserve the love and respect they get and some just dont get it. From leaving the venue all the way to the Airport I have had fans of the sport ask me to take out Brock Lesnar for them. The thing is I have a very tough fight ahead of me that IMO is every bit as tough and talented as Brock … we are at the top of the HWT division and anyone we fight moving forward is going to be a real test. Cain is nothing short of a super athlete with amazing wrestling and he trains with one of the best camps in the country. I am sure Joe Silva told Cain the same thing he told us, winner gets the title shot.Cain is not looking past me he is looking right at me as the person that is in his way from potentially one of the greatest opportunities of his life and mine. I have said what I have to say about Brock. He will make sure the world knows who he is and what he is all about. I ask that you my fans and the fans of Cain give this fight its due. You would never see two rising undefeated stars put together in Boxing so enjoy this fight. Two warriors with wills to win and the skills to do so are going to show those watching UFC 104 what the future of the sport will look like.”


Let me know your thoughts in the comments section or e-mail me. Am I alone in my thinking or do you agree with me??
Miss something? Questions? Comments? E-mail me:
samantha.lynn.johnson@gmail.com