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Thank you for taking time to stop by this blog site to share your opinions and views on the world of MMA. It is the fastest growing sport in the world today and will continue to get better.
It is now known that the reason Alistair Overeem did not defend his StrikeForce heavyweight championship was really due to no fault of his own. Overeem had won the belt and had no place to defend it because he was not under contract to StrikeForce.
It seems that StrikeForce is to blame for the confusion because they gave Overeem a title shot, possibly thinking he was not going to win, and had no plan set up to keep him in StrikeForce in case he won the title. You would have thought StrikeForce should have had a "champion's clause" in place for situations like this, but it seems they have learned their lesson and now have such a clause in their contracts.Some have a problem with the clause, but it is in the promoters best interest to use them.
Overeem will be competing in this years K-1 World GP, and when it is finally over, hopefully he will be defending his title at a StrikeForce event. I know Overeem has taken a lot of criticism for not defending his title in about 2 years from fans, fighters, and yours truly, me. I want to apologize personally for jumping the gun and putting all the blame on Alistair. Hopefully, he will prove us all wrong by defending his title and showing us why he deserved to have it in the first place.
It seems that MMA is crossing over again into the Hollywood scene. Movie director Steven Soderbergh is going to direct a spy thriller called "KnockOut", which will be starring MMA fighter Gina Carano. She is definitely a knockout when it comes to her beauty and her skills inside and outside of the cage. In her recent fight though, she suffered a loss to Chris Cyborg, who is now the woman's StrikeForce champion. Cyborg dominated Carano in this fight by finishing her off with a ground and pound TKO victory at the ending of the first round.
This will not be Carano's first acting job. She has previously appeared in the documentary "Ring Girls" and on the television shows "Fight Girls" and "American Gladiators" (playing "Crush"). In the movie "KnockOut", Gina will be playing a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes. It is said that the movie should start shooting sometime in February 2010.
Gina's name has been synonymous with womens MMA. Everyone has labeled her the "face of womens MMA" because her accomplishments have helped to further the progress and awareness of women in MMA. When she suffered the loss to Cyborg, some felt that womens MMA might suffer, but it showed that women fighters are capable of headlining a main event. I would have figured that Gina would have wanted to get back in the cage as soon as possible to make up for that loss on her record. I guess being as popular as she is, she is taking advantage of all the opportunities being thrown her way. Being a movie star is not a bad thing. I hope she does step back in the ring to show the haters that she is more than just something pretty to look at.
There is a new subject that has been buzzing around Twitter lately, it's the movement to have Dana White bring Big John McCarthy back to the UFC. When it comes to top notch referees in MMA, McCarthy definitely fits the bill. McCarthy's following by fans is as big as any MMA fighter, he can be considered a superstar.
The referees job in the cage is to protect the fighters, make sure the fight is kept fair,
and to be another set of eyes for the judges scoring the fight. In some recent fights, there have been questionable calls and stoppages made by the referees. One of the fights that I saw at UFC 102 that should have been stopped immediately, was Leben vs Rosholt. Rosholt had Leben in a triangle arm choke and it clearly appeared that Leben was trying to tap out. Unfortunately, referee Yves Lavigne did not stop the fight immediately and Leben was choked unconscious with his body beginning to shake.
The point being made is that when it comes to responsible officiating, there are only a few referees that get the job done properly, with McCarthy being one of them. Fighters need referees in the cage that are well trained and know "when to say when". If there are not more good referees like McCarthy employed in the UFC, it definitely could lead to a fighter being hurt permanently. There needs to be better training for MMA officiating crews so that each referee is trained the same and can better protect the fighters inside of the cage.
