[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Pretty good night of fights. Some questionable endings, but when they're breaking in new refs that's to be expected. Big John McCarthy will be missed. The only downside was some asshole next to me had heard how the fights went already (we were on tape delay here in the states) and spoiled the ending of the Hughes/Alves for me. I was a little pissed.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I thought this article from mmaweekly.com was pretty interesting, and raises the question of if this will become common with more fighters. A lot of these guys seem to have the same problem.



Nick Diaz has a history of being cut in fights and after losing to K.J. Noons for the EliteXC lightweight championship due to them, Diaz decided enough was enough and underwent plastic surgery to alleviate scar tissue and hopefully prevent the California fighter from suffering future lacerations.

Diaz' trainer, Cesar Gracie, discussed the procedure and it's success to the media via conference call on Monday. "Over his career he's built up a lot of scar tissue, so it keeps cutting over and over on his ocular bone," explained Gracie.

"We had a plastic surgeon look at it. He said that Nick's ocular bones are extremely sharp, and he's always going to cut and keep building up scar tissue. So, fortunately, the plastic surgeon was able to remedy that by filing it down and making it smooth like someone that doesn't cut."

The outpatient surgery that took "a few hours" was a complete success by all accounts. "Before, Nick was constantly getting cut, even when he was rolling. I mean, it was weird," said Gracie. "But it's been a complete success and we're really pleased with it. It's going to really add to the longevity of his career."

"He was getting cut off silly stuff. So we're just thrilled that we can put that behind him," added Gracie. "Now when he loses, it can be because he got stopped, he got knocked out or something. Look at the Gomi fight, his face was a bloody mess, and he still came back and won because fortunately that doctor didn't stop the fight. He let it go."

Diaz has competed once since the plastic surgery, winning in impressive fashion over Katsuya Inoue in the DREAM promotion.

"Nick came out like the Nick Diaz of old that we're accustomed to seeing back in the day, really aggressive. Doing what he does," stated Gracie. "He looked really good."

"Nick is a really tough guy. I think, without getting cut up, you're going to see Nick is really hard to stop... We're excited that now he's going to have to be submitted or knocked out to lose the fight."

[Pig Iron]

Interesting article. You could probably sharpen someones elbows too ...

UFC 85 had really good fights even though it didn't look like it beforehand. And yay for Kampmann.

Bisping needs to get some tougher competition. And yes I know they're building him and he just went down a weightclass.

[Cougar]

You raise a good point; Bispings fights are mainly disappointing, I'm wondering if they are scared of him losing and UFC losing viewers in the UK or something, he's always on the British cards and the main attraction of him is that he is a successful British fighter.

[paladin]

yea, bisping isnt top tier talent at this point and they probably dont want him to lose in the uk.. so much so that it seems they fixed the hamill fight after hamill won in everyones eyes but the judges

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

mma junkie says "The full card for Saturday's Adrenaline MMA event will be available online, the organization today announced.

Although the main card of the event will be shown live on HDNet, viewers can also watch the entire 14-fight card online at Vividas.com.
The full card includes:

* Jason Guida (23-17) vs. Mike Russow (9-1)
* Daiju Takase (7-11) vs. Terry Martin (16-4)
* Forrest Petz (11-5) vs. Brian Gassaway (25-17-1)
* Marcus Levesseur (12-1) vs. Mark Miller (9-3)
* Jeff Cox (9-6) vs. Bart Palaszewski (28-11)
* Jay Ellis (11-15) vs. Rory Markham (14-4)
* Jameel Massouh (15-3) vs. Clay French (14-2)
* Herc Hayes (7-5) vs. Kerry Schall (22-9)
* Aaron Rosa (10-2) vs. Ron Fields (23-24-1)
* Hector Urbina (11-3) vs. Dave Kleczkowski (6-3)
* Dom O'Grady (5-0) vs. Mike Stumpf (9-1)
* Joe Jordan (41-11) vs. Ryan Williams (6-1)
* Louis Taylor (4-0) vs. Adam Maciejewski (6-4)
* Joe Pearson (22-9) vs. John Hosman (8-3-1)

Vividas will offer a high-quality, full-screen feed of the event beginning at 7 p.m. ET. The televised main card of the event begins at 9:30 p.m. ET."

Not a super card, but free mma is free mma. If I get the chance i might watch it.

[No-God]

Dream 4 was fantastic. That card blew most of this years' UFC cards out of the water, just as Dream 3 did.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I'd heard it was supposed to be a good card. Who were the headliners?

[Pig Iron]

Only seen a few of the DREAM 4 fights so far in low quality clips, but they were very nice.

Spoiler

Gogoplata from mount! Being a grappling nerd I thought that was incredible! Seeing Ralek was nostalgic too. Haven't seen Jacare's fight. Sakuraba need to retire; he will have to be fed with a spoon ten years from now.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva is making his light-heavyweight debut and taking on veteran fighter James Irvin at a free July 19 UFC event on Spike. They're trying to steal viewers from the Affliction card. Crazy.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Oh, and brandon Vera is making his light heavyweight debut. This is turning into quite the event, for being free. I'd like to try to watch this and the Affliction card.

[Pig Iron]

A must see. Kind of evil of Zuffa to try stomp out any upcoming competition. But I guess that's how it goes in business.

[paladin]

vera vs ifl chump has little draw compared to vera vs wandy

same with silva vs liddell rather than silva vs typical non-contending ufc journeyman

the affliction card is still way better and the ppv is a rather cheap 40$. one thing that concerns me is that they are charging way too much for tix.. still a LOT of good tickets available, but decent ones are over 300 per ticket and great ones are over 1k per ticket.

[Pig Iron]

I had no idea what that card looked like! It's insane. Are you going to see it live Paladin?

Fedor Emelianenko (27-1) vs Tim Sylvia (24-4)
Aleksander Emelianenko (13-3) vs. Paul Buentello (23-10)
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (13-3) vs. Vernon White (26-32-2)
Andrei Arlovski (12-5) vs. Ben Rothwell (29-5)
Josh Barnett (21-5) vs. Pedro Rizzo (16-7)
Mike Whitehead (20-5) vs. Renato “Babalu” Sobral (29-7)
Matt Lindland (20-5) vs. Fabio Nascimento (8-3)
Terry Martin (16-4) vs. Vitor Belfort (16-8)
Justin Levens (9-8) vs. Patrick Speight (6-0)
JJ Ambrose (9-1) vs. Mike Pyle (15-5-1)
Savant Young (8-7) vs. Mark Hominick (15-8)

What do you think the results will be? Ill go Fedor - Buentello - Nogueira - Arlovski - Barnett on the first five.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I love the looks of the Affliction card. Some of the good fights are unthe the untelevised undercard though. I'd love to see Buentello vs AE. I might actually order this card. I have never paid for a ppv typically the only good ones are ufc, and are all free at the casino. This card though, wow. I predict the Sylvia fight will be boring, regardless of the outcome.

The UFC card isn't great, but for a free event being thrown together at the last minute, you can't argue with it. Smart but ruthless move for UFC. Affliction needs this show to do well, and this competition could hurt them bad.

[paladin]

the AE fight and little nog fight will be on fox sports net i believe before the main portion of the card starts

i may see it live, but the tickets are so freaking expensive. hard to see from nosebleed at the pond. and those tix are like 50bux. im going to be browsing ebay for good deals and maybe driving around lookin for scalpers prior to the show

now, the main matchup is intriguing, but id rather see barnett/fedor.

arlovski/rothwell shouldnt be a challenge for arlovski considering his pedigree.. a rematch with sylvia would have been fun.

martin and vitor will be fun. all we're missing is don frye celebrity ref.

barnett/rizzo is intriguing though since rizzo was his first mma loss and its never been avenged

edit: heres the TV plan

MAIN CARD (PAY PER VIEW)
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia
Andrei Arlovski vs. Ben Rothwell
Josh Barnett vs. Pedro Rizzo
Matt Lindland vs. Fabio Nascimento
Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Mike Whitehead

PRELIMINARY CARD (FSN)
Paul Buentello vs. Aleksander Emelianenko
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Vernon White

PRELIMINARY CARD (MAY NOT BE BROADCAST)
Vitor Belfort vs. Terry Martin
Ray Lazama vs. Justin Levens
J.J. Ambrose vs. Mike Pyle
Mark Hominick vs. Savant Young

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Where is it being held? What's great about this card is that by mixing up the matchups they can create an entirely different event that is at least as compelling. Affliction doesn't really even need to sign many more fighters yet. The next event can be a shuffling of this card, with just a few new guys thrown in.

[paladin]

the pond in anaheim(now known as the honda center but noone calls it that shit, its the fuckin POND DAMMIT!)

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I wanna go. Actually, I'm not in a big hurry to make it to a live mma event. I think I get a better view on tv. I'm sure the atmosphere is impressive though.

[No-God]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;333597 said:

I wanna go. Actually, I'm not in a big hurry to make it to a live mma event. I think I get a better view on tv. I'm sure the atmosphere is impressive though.

The atmosphere is amazing.

I'm a grappler, and I train with a lot of the guys who fight here and there, so I've seen dozens of MMA events live (ranging from Pride's 2003 Middleweight Grand Prix finals, to the first Elite XC, to several UFCs, and tons of Shooto and King of the Cage events).

You get a good view on TV, but you usually have a good view live, too. Especially with the big screens. And the atmosphere just makes it worth it. So great.

Affliction's card, in my opinion, blows any UFC card of the past year out of the water. Then again, pretty much all four Dream events did, too.

EDIT: The Dream 4 event had the next round to the Middleweight Tournament (Jacare/Miller, Sakuraba/Manhoef, Galesic/Kin, Yoon/Mousasi), Aoki/Nagata, possible fight of the year in Tokoro/Uyenoyama...