Gymdb Blog

Tanner, ex-UFC middle weight champ, who once trained with Chuteboxe in Brazil and Team Quest in USA died sometime around September 3rd out in the desert, due to heat stroke.

Truly hard-working and soft-spoken I always felt he truly embodied the true fighting spirit lacking in the upcoming generation of the sport.

I read his blog posts almost religiously and few fighters have had the capacity to resonate so deeply with me. One of my favorite quotes from him that I will carry for the rest of my life, went something along the lines of:
Modern day culture tends to judge a mans worth based on the items he possesses, instead of who that man truly is.

Thanks for the wise words and all the entertaining fights over the years Evan, you will be missed.

For more on the story head on over to Sherdogs article “Tanner, According to Those Who Knew Him Best”

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In case you missed it, Randy Couture of Xtreme Couture is facing Brock Lesnar, on November 15 ‘08!

This is some big news, and a plethora of emotions come rushing to me all at once. Here we go, one at a time:

1. Wait, didn’t Randy Couture essentially condemn the UFC and turn his back on them?
What happened to standing by your morals, advocating for better fighter treatment from the UFC, industry standards etc… etc… or was that all just rhetoric and a selfish excuse for complaining about his own poor-pay? I mean I understand the legal battle he was facing against Zuffa and and he is making the best out of a shitty situation, but COME ON.

2. Couture said he had one more fight left in him and wanted it to be against “The Best” (Fedor)
Lesnar is pretty goddamn far from “The Best”, unless you are talking about hype factor, and even then its a stretch with the likes of Kimbo around. Although on this note, there is talks of Fedor possibly coming to the UFC to fight Randy after this one (provided Couture wins!), however that is its own post for another day.

This match does make sense to me - Couture is out to prove that he is the best by shutting down Lesnar, whos hype is only exceeded by the size of his lats, however…

3. If Couture looses it brings a lot of credibility of MMA into question
Couture has had a lot of trouble with large fighters in his jaded and carefully padded career, and with Lesnar, having only 3 fights if he does put away Couture it makes MMA seem somewhat of a shallow sport based on size and strength, instead of skill and determination.

Prediction: Couture works his usual game plan, shuts Lesnar down and submits or pounds his way to victory within 2 rounds.

Either way, if Fedor does come to the UFC only on thing is for certain - somebody is getting a good old fashioned Russian beatdown!

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Well its hours away from the finale, and I gotta be honest, what was allegedly “The best season yet” according to Dana White, while having a few interesting moments, has been somewhat lackluster overall.

Top 3 moments:

• Rampage being wound up by CB, and challenging him (100% seriously) on camera to a grappling match and being tapped out like a bitch in 3 seconds.
• JT pissing all-over himself, twice.
• CB getting his ass handed to him by Amir

The Coaches:

Rampage:

I am sure nobody will have any argument when I say Rampage was a let down. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was cracking annoying, predictable “whoop your ass”, “your so ugly”, “your breath stinks” jokes and getting wound up and tapped out by his trainees?

Forrest:

Definitely the “dark horse coach”. Unassuming, hardworking and humble. Despite stating he has no affinity to training fighters, he is no doubt an awesome coach and without knowing it. Getting in there and mixing it up, Forrest showed coaches how its done, and the number speak volumes, with only 1 of his guys loosing their fights before the semi finals.

Final Amir Sadollah vs CB Dollaway 2:

Only hours away now, this should be a great fight. Although a close fight, Amir won the first encounter. Amir with his inherent heart, talent and ability, (that he seems to overlook, most likely due to his own, misplaced insecurities). Quite juxtaposed from the arrogant, one dimensional, albeit strong and hard working CB. My pick for the winner later today is most definitely Amir.

Honorable Mention: Jesse “JT Money” Taylor

What a douche. Thick as a brick JT probably has more physical talent than I’ve seen yet. He has the heart and tools. Yet he still finds a way to sabotage himself through stupidity and self destructiveness.

Closing Note

After the over hype of the limo incident and the promising of this being the “greatest season ever”, I have got to say I am not impressed with TUF. Sure they have to attract viewers, but there is no need to irresponsibly over-hype and continual over-promising and under-delivering, thus pissing all over the existing loyal fan base.

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Update: This aint happening. Chuck Liddell is facing Rashad Evans.
Update: Anderson will face James Irvin (yawn). Expect a quick KO/sub from Silva.
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=eventDetail.FightCard&eid=1461

According to an article that appeared on wrestlingherald.com today that very well may be the case. The following was sent along to mmanews.com by Angel Aramboles: “I just got off the phone with a source very close to the situation and I am told that UFC is expected to make several announcements on Thursday.

1) Anderson Silva will be fighting in the light heavyweight class
2) Chuck Liddell will fight in the main event on the September pay-per-view in Atlanta”

Anderson, Undefeated UFC MiddleWeight champion:

Chuck, ex-UFC Light Heavy Weight King:

Is this indicative of a potential super fight? I think so… This would make for an exciting match up, and I think UFC will be making the right choice if they proceed with this. Anderson, while exceptionally skilled as a fighter is somewhat lackluster in terms of star power and defeating Chuck is just the guy to launch him full swing into stardom.

Anderson has all the tools to put away Chuck, better jiu-jitsu, sharper standup albeit I do have to give the strength and comfort factor to Chuck having fought at lhw for the bulk of his career.

Its slated to go down in September at UFC 88, so lets just keep our fingers crossed and eyes peeled.

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I’ve made a host of updates and improvements to the gymdb.com some of the highlights include, built in Google map functionality.

• Improvement: Google Maps built into gym viewer.
• Improvement: Option to specify extra address details or directions for gyms.
• Improvement: Logs now visible on gym manage page.
• Improvement: Beefed up invite system, also added more info and a personal message section.
• Improvement: Added meta descriptions to prettify Google results.

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Wow. So this is the headline, live network bout that has finally pushed Mixed Martial Arts to mainstream. While I am glad its happened, I am incredibly sad and disappointed that this was the fight that took it there.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought the actual promotion EliteXC put on was decent. The problem was both the sub-par professional skill of Slice and Thompson and the utter, blatant favoritism that was enjoyed by EliteXC’s hype machine AKA Kimbo Slice.

• The fight certainly could have been stopped in the second round by Thompson from his unanswered ground and pound on Slice.
• Thompson had full side control and was doing good on the ground yet they stood them up continually, TV ratings are one things, a fair fight is another.

Thompsons Swollen Ear
Yes this was a particularly weird and integral part of the fight. Firstly, its extremely odd that Thompson came in with the swollen ear. Why on earth wouldn’t he drain it before the fight? It was evident that it would pop. If you look at the weigh-ins and pre-fight interviews there was no evidence of any problems with his ear, did this happen in the changing rooms warming up? Or more sinister, is this evidence of a potential fix?

Either way he is going to have serious problems with the piece of ham hanging off the side of his head he calls an ear from here on out.

Is Kimbo legit?
Is Kimbo a threat to other pro mma heavy-weights right now? Not really.

Will he be? Probably. His stand-up is sharp and he has the natural talent and the inclination to improve, however it was evident he has MANY holes in his game. With Bas at his side I see him being a force in a year or two, provided he consistently trains and focuses on his wrestling and ground-game. Right now he is nowhere near top 10, and would ass handed to him by most of the talent at Heavyweight.

Images courtesy of sherdog.com

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A couple more fixes and improvements here and there have been made to the gymdb.

• Bug Fix: Area code only worked for numerical values.
• Bug Fix: Gym logo breaking when uppercase characters were in filename.
• Bug Fix: Creating gyms would fail if “Gym Tags” (gymdb addresses) were not unique, now it auto appends “-1″ to the gymdb address
• Improvement: Added “Admin” flag to members, so any selected can manage listing, instead of hard coding it to owners / web-masters.
• Improvement: Added “secret hash” to invite system. So invites aren’t tied to email addresses and can only be used once for added security.
• Improvement: Second gym email address field.
• Visual Improvement: Gym manager hides long content and makes it expandable/collapsible to save space.
• Bug Fix: Smoothed the profile viewer out and made it a touch more visually pleasing

Much more coming

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After BJ’s systematic dismantling of Juggernaut Sean Sherk last weekend, I started thinking. Why is BJ Penn actually so good? He couldn’t possibly look less impressive from the outset, combining baldness with a “soft looking exterior” (allegedly from his lack of dieting).

My guestimations?

• the guy is dripping with talent and natural ability.
• His flexibility is legendary
• He is incredibly smart
• Has a chin of granite from that soccer-ball sized head of his.

Since his recent indications of taking the sport more seriously I think we’re going to see a fighter thats nigh unstoppable.

Hate or love the guy, he is all at once good for Mixed Martial Arts, a damn good fighter and entertaining as hell. Despite my personal dislike of him due to his blatant arrogance and conceited nature I will most certainly be watching all his fights in the future.

My thoughts on his future; BJ is a risk taker, I see him wanting to stroke that gargantuan ego of his by putting his name in the history books as first fighter in UFC history to hold “two belts in two weight divisions at the same time” by shifting up a weight division to tackle GSP at Welterweight, a fight which in my opinion he will probably loose, again.

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With most of the talent having already vacated Chuteboxe and Brazilian Top Team, the future of these mma powerhouses already hung in the balance.

Thiago Silva, an up-and-coming professional UFC fighter with a record of 13-0, was ChuteBoxe’s last hope, however I see now he too has left and is training at American Top Team, which is fast establishing itself as the new talent pool for mma.

On Brazilian Top Teams side - the last shred of skill they have left; Ricardo Arona has expressed interest in starting up his own gym and leaving BTT.

I hate to say it, but these once proud mma machines are now receding to mere shells of their former selves and I doubt they will ever be the same again.

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Since the last (8 second!) KO loss to James Irvin, where to now for Houston?

The guy has some great stand-up and plenty of natural athleticism, but he was for sure over whelmed by some of the guys he has fought.

If he really wishes to contend and be among the best right now he needs to get serious with his grappling and wrestling, find himself a proper mma gym with solid wrestling and bjj (maybe he should use the gymdb :P) and garner experience against the lower-end competition. I doubt the UFC would completely drop him, as he is an exciting fighter, but they may have no choice if he continues with his loosing streak.

For now though I see him making some appearances at a few UFC fight nights. I always had a soft spot for this dude, being a single dad with six children cannot be easy.

Also Houston is not exactly the youngest guy at age 37, Perhaps he has had his 15 minutes of fame, and now he’ll be seen meandering around the occasional UFC Fight Night?

Links:
Houstons MMA record
Houston on Wikipedia

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