[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Bubba, on Dec 18 2008, 11:47 AM, said:

Quote

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. -- A mixed martial arts fighter and his wife were found shot to death in a Laguna Niguel condominium in what authorities said was an apparent murder-suicide.

The bodies of Justin Levens and his wife, Sarah McLean-Levens, were found Wednesday afternoon, Orange County sheriff's officials said. The 28-year-old Levens competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and other organizations.

Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said the couple was found by the woman's mother, who called 911.

Lt. Mike Jansen says further information would be released Thursday.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

Yeah, bad stuff. The guy was on a losing streak and was serving a doping suspension. Bad situation.

[amphibian]

The doping suspension was for testing positive for a ridiculously large amount of an opioid-based painkiller.

That sucks.

GSP vs. Penn; Griffin vs. Evans; Big Nog vs. Mir; Wanderlei vs. Rampage. Who ya got?

My picks: GSP by convincing decision. Griffin by submission. Big Nog by whatever he wants. And it's a flipping toss-up for the Wandy/Rampage fight - it all depends on which Rampage shows up: Henderson fight Rampage or dehydrated, hallucinating Jesus freak Rampage. Judging from the snorkel training videos I've seen, Wanderlei will no doubt be fit and ready to go.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

amphibian, on Dec 18 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

The doping suspension was for testing positive for a ridiculously large amount of an opioid-based painkiller.

That sucks.

GSP vs. Penn; Griffin vs. Evans; Big Nog vs. Mir; Wanderlei vs. Rampage. Who ya got?

My picks: GSP by convincing decision. Griffin by submission. Big Nog by whatever he wants. And it's a flipping toss-up for the Wandy/Rampage fight - it all depends on which Rampage shows up: Henderson fight Rampage or dehydrated, hallucinating Jesus freak Rampage. Judging from the snorkel training videos I've seen, Wanderlei will no doubt be fit and ready to go.

-gsp close decision
-griffin by decision
-mir/nog? Depends on Mir's conditioning. I think their BJJ willl about cancel each other out. If Mir gasses he's done, if not I think age and explosiveness will carry it for him. Nog is all about taking an ass beating for 20 minutes and then catching people in a sub. If Mir has enough energy, his BJJ should be enough to keep him frm getting caught. I'm rooting for nog.
-Wandy by decision

Ask me again in a couple of days and I'll hvae different answers.

[amphibian]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Dec 19 2008, 04:05 AM, said:

-mir/nog? Depends on Mir's conditioning. I think their BJJ willl about cancel each other out. If Mir gasses he's done, if not I think age and explosiveness will carry it for him. Nog is all about taking an ass beating for 20 minutes and then catching people in a sub. If Mir has enough energy, his BJJ should be enough to keep him frm getting caught. I'm rooting for nog.

Big Nog's BJJ is probably the second best in all of MMA. BJ Penn is the one person I'd consider better than him. Frank Mir is a black belt, but he's not on the same level as Nog. However, the rules of MMA probably make "canceling out" more likely.

I have no idea if Mir is explosive anymore after that bad accident a few years ago. His Lesnar fight didn't show me much of anything regarding that.

Nog's face looks like an old leather basketball. Haha.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I don't doubt that Nog's BJJ is on a whole different level than Mir's. I think though that Mir's might be good enough to not get subbed (In a mma fight anyways, he would get broke in a pure BJJ match), which gives him the shot of winning a decision. basically I think this fight hangs on conditioning.

[Coco with marshmallows]

wanderlei/rampage - depends if Wanderlei has hair or not.

seriously, whenever he's shaved down and you can see that tattoo, he's a ****ing animal.
whenever he has hair, he seems a lot less aggressive. Its weird.

I'd like Nog, just because I think he'll be a better fight for Lesnar,

Griffin / Evans i'm guessing Griffin. I don't particularly like Mike Bisping a great deal, but he was fairly unlucky to lose to Evans in that decision. As for Liddell,
yeah Evans knocked him TFO, but in some ways it was a bit of a lucky shot. watching the re-runs i never initially realised how close Chuck's fist was to Evans chin at
the same time. Shame, it would have been a great double KO.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Cocoreturns, on Dec 20 2008, 02:14 AM, said:

wanderlei/rampage - depends if Wanderlei has hair or not.

seriously, whenever he's shaved down and you can see that tattoo, he's a ****ing animal.
whenever he has hair, he seems a lot less aggressive. Its weird.

Andrei Arlovski is the same way, except with body hair. Back when he was wooly on his back and shoulders, he ws a beast. Then he got all waxed up and fought like crap.

[Coco with marshmallows]

So gentlemen.

thoughts?

BIG HONKING SPOILERS FOR UFC 92 BELOW:

Spoiler

I was a little surprised by rampage / wanderlei.
watching them walk in, I thought that rampage didn't look very focused. In fact, I was thinking he was halfway out of it, and that wanderlei would flatten him.
Well, I was very wrong about that.

Griffin looked quite tentative to me. The kicks he threw were hurting Evans, and if it was the gameplan to wear Rashad down over a few rounds and then go for it,
fair enough, but Griffin didn't seem that agressive to me and almost looked like he was gassing. Don't know why, that's just the impression that I got. Kudos to Evans,
he won and won well.

Mir / Nog.... well, that was a turn-up. But as the commentators mentioned during it, eventually all those concussions and other damages will start catching up.
Looks like its starting to catch up to Nog.

[frookenhauer]

Spoiler

I was fairly certain about the rampage and silva outcome, but the complete spark out was a effing surprise I tell you, it was also funny how Rampy boy got in a few cheeky hits while silva is seeing black

Spoiler

In terms of the griffin evans fight...Bad game plan, wearing rashad evans down was not the way to go, Griffin needed to be a hell of a lot more aggressive against the powerhouse that is Rashad. I was surprised though.

Spoiler

As for the heavyweight contenders battle, Ng was heavily outclassed, get it? Still the man is no way in the same league as Brock Lesner who is gaining momentum and has yet to peak, it should be an easy win for the freight train come title defence.

Spoiler

Also, that Rampage power punch is not as good as Rashads iceman killer blow, Man I thought the big guy had died...In a matchup between Rashad and Jackson, my money is on Rashad.

Here are my thoughts dude...Does anyone know if there will be a second coming of Anderson Silva to the light heavyweight belt? I'd like to see how he'd fare in against rashad.

And why are we spoilerising?

[amphibian]

Anderson won't fight for the 205 title - at least until Machida gets it (I think he will take it from Evans). Even then they'd have to get paid much more money than they do now to fight each other, being BFFs.

Rampage threw a perfect counter. It was a beauty.

Something was wrong with Big Nog. He just wasn't moving and Mir tagged him with the same dang combo about five times. Mir fought the fight of his life though. Big daps to him for coming out in force.

Griffin had a great game plan. He was convincingly winning the fight until he got tossed to the ground and caught a good punch at a bad time. He was clearly hurt and couldn't do much with the guard. I'm surprised Rashad took so long to finish him, actually. I don't think Griffin and gassing is an issue; he looked absolutely sucked up and ready to go throughout.

Over on another board I frequent, a member noted that none of the fights ended in submissions. He said that it looks like Anderson Silva may have changed the course of MMA by creating a re-emphasis on striking - now that almost everyone knows enough BJJ to not get submitted.

I think he's mostly right, but at the heavier weight classes. Somewhere around 205, it gets real hard to move people around BJJ-wise, especially from the bottom. Below that, it's easier and more likely to happen.

[Coco with marshmallows]

25 minutes till ufc 93.....

got some beer in,

got a big flatscreen telly,

no interruptions,

and I can go out after its finished because it will still only be about 11 at night, rather than 6 in the frigging morning.

sometimes, life is sweet. Parenthetically, i figure Franklin and Rua for wins at present. we'll see.

anyone else watching?

[amphibian]

Cocoreturns, on Jan 17 2009, 02:44 PM, said:

sometimes, life is sweet. Parenthetically, i figure Franklin and Rua for wins at present. we'll see.

anyone else watching?

I had multiple options for watching this UFC - going to a bar (dance club in basement) with a bunch of girls, going to a friend's house for the big screen and company and watching it at home with a six pack of Woodchuck. Guess which one I chose?

If you guessed "took a 16 hour nap - after going through 4 hours of MMA practice and three of pouring concrete - and missed the whole thing", you win a prize. My recognizance of your omniscience.

Shogun looked punch-drunk in the first round, as Coleman landed some weirdly strong hooks, but then I guess his bad cardio took over from that. Coleman looked strong as ever, but really, really slow. Rua should have taken him apart in the second with much more kicks and better technical boxing. He'll be fighting Liddell next time out, so he's gotta get that PRIDE gas tank back and clean up his kick-boxing. I can't really fault him for not finishing the omaplota, as Coleman's strength seemed to prevent that from happening in less than 30 seconds.

Henderson-Franklin was pretty decent. I gave it to Henderson 29-28.

Kang got caught - BIG TIME. Belcher looked terrible for that round and a half, but capitalized on a mistake.

[frookenhauer]

It was a distinctly average UFC and I just finished watching it a few moments ago on repeat.

Highlights was Coleman, The guy is old and was pretty much finishedin the first round but refused to lay down. But the breather helped Shogun more than him, very unfortunate cos if it went to points it would have been close, very close.

Henderson / Jim Carrys' brother fight was fairly humdrum and while the second round was clearly hendersons...Nah, it was hendersons fight, but very close.

Here's to the next UFC, its going to be massive!

[No-God]

I'm looking forward to GSP/Penn II this weekend, but I honestly don't see it as one of the biggest MMA fights of all time. Not even close.

In my opinion, that title belongs to the likes of Fedor/CroCop I, or Silva/Arona II, or Silva/Rampage II, or Fedor/Nog III.

[amphibian]

No-God, on Jan 29 2009, 01:33 PM, said:

I'm looking forward to GSP/Penn II this weekend, but I honestly don't see it as one of the biggest MMA fights of all time. Not even close.

In my opinion, that title belongs to the likes of Fedor/CroCop I, or Silva/Arona II, or Silva/Rampage II, or Fedor/Nog III.

You're kidding me, right?

Name a better fighter at 155 or 170 than BJ Penn or Georges St. Pierre. Name five people that are higher than them on the pound for pound list.

Quick comments on Affliction: Fedor's instincts are amazing. He saw Arlovski's hands drop and immediately threw the accurate right. I'm surprised Yvel lasted that long in mount. Kiril would be a force at 205 inside a year.

[Coco with marshmallows]

sorry no-god, i'm with amphibian on this one, i'm expencting an immense fight.

I'm also really interested by the Machida / Silva match up. granted, it's not the Silva I would have really liked to see fight Machida,
but in a pinch he'll do

[frookenhauer]

UFC! UFC! UFC!

I'm seriously stoked!

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I almost flaked out and forgot this was this weekend. Sweet.

[Bonesaw85]

Holy crap..... The day has finally come!!!


GSP by late tko or UD

If Penn wins I'm seriously gonna cry

[frookenhauer]

4 hrs 11 minutes to go.....Mark!