Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all the UFC pay-per-view and UFC Fight Night shows on Spike TV and the WEC fights on Versus, on top of the Ultimate Fighter show on wednesdays and every other tw-bit organization trying to put a show together. So I have taken the time to filter some of the biggest MMA news into a quick read article that will bring you up to date with all the water cooler conversations. Missed any of the recent UFC or WEC events and want to catch up? Here’s some of the highlights…

  

Brock Lesnar is now the UFC HW champion, not Randy Couture:

220lb Randy Couture was clearly outsized by a 280lb Brock Lesnar in the UFC 91 main event. Couture’s experience could not make up for the size and power difference. Lesnar eventually earned a TKO stoppage in the second round. He managed to shrug off Randy’s superior clinch game in the first round, many times ending on top after the scrambles. Both fighters landed good punches and created some damage, but the first round went to Lesnar. Second round was much the same until Lesnar landed a punch to Couture’s ear that sent the former champion to the canvas where Lesnar pounced and earned the stoppage after numerous hammer fists to the face. In order for the UFC to “unify” the belts, Brock Lesnar must now face the winner of the “interim” title fight in UFC 92 Dec. 27th between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir, the current Ultimate Fighter coaches. The “undisputed” UFC Heavyweight champion title has essentially turned into a four man tournament.

   

Urijah Faber loses WEC title but remains top draw:

Long time WEC featherweight champion and crowd favorite Urijah Faber just lost his title to Mike Brown. Mike Brown has managed to fly under the radar fo some time but was widely known to mma insiders as a geniune threat and perhaps favorite against the champion. Faber tried to end the fight with a jumping side elbow off the cage but ate a heavy right on the way in and was stunned to the ground. Mike Brown had good killer instinct and swarmed the injured Faber to earn the stoppage near the end of the first round. Although Urijah Faber lost the fight, it was clear that the reason he is such a big draw and fan favorite is not because he keeps winning, it’s because of the way he fights. Urijah Faber versus anybody is guaranteed to be an exciting match, wether it’s for the title or not, Faber will be there to fight and deliver a great performance for the fans.

  

Kenny Florian proves he is the number one UFC lightweight contender:

During the UFC 91, Kenny Florian defeated top lightweight Joe Stenvenson via rear naked choke in the first round. Florian dominated the entire fight and hurt Stevenson early in the round. Florian’s quick victory over Joe Stevenson sent a message to the current champion BJ Penn who took longer to dismantle the same opponent. Florian’s stock has never been higher and has earned the fans respect and enough of a following to deserve another shot at the title after Penn and GSP meet in January.

   

Leonard Garcia walks through Jens Pulver:

Garcia showed the power in his hands by blowing Jens Pulver out the water seconds into their WEC fight. Garcia began by throwing bombs that soon had Pulver in trouble, then started teeing off on a crumbling Jens Pulver to earn the TKO victory early in the first round. Leonard looks much improved and the correct size in the 145lb division as opposed to his previous UFC 155lb fight against Roger Huerta. It is unclear if Garcia will be given a title shot against new champion Mike Brown. Personally I believe a Leonard Garcia vs. Urijah Faber WEC main event fight would be great while Mike Brown recovers from a hand injury he sustained during the fight against Faber.

   

Paulo Filho no longer undefeated and possibly a crack head:

Ok, I may be exagerating a little, but if anybody saw Filho against Chael Sonnen you have to wonder. Not only did he ruin Sonnen’s chance for the title by being 7 pounds overweight and losing 25% of his purse, but he looked terrible in the fight itself. Paulo was widely recognized as the number two middleweight in the world behind training partner Anderson Silva, but showed no sign of any desire to win the fight agaisnt Sonnen. Chael dominated the standup all three rounds, and managed to stay far from trouble on the ground, maintaining top position and causing plenty of damage to easily win each round. The whole MMA world has quickly rearranged their top middleweight list to account for the fact that Paulo Filho has clearly been highly overrated for a long time only because of his undefeated status and association to Anderson Silva. Chael Sonnen on the other hand proved his position as a top contender in the division and should have some exciting matchups now that the WEC middleweight division is being rolled into the UFC.

   

UFC is dropping recognized fighters left and right, they’ve gone gangster:

Don’t give Dana White any shit and don’t fucking suck in your UFC or WEC fight, or you’ll get the wrath of the UFC thrusted upon you, here’s a quick list of the latest UFC firings…
Jon Fitch and Christian Wellisch (didn’t want to sign a lifetime likeness agreement)
Paulo Filho (did not make weight and then sucked ass in his “non-title” fight)
Fabricio Werdum (was a top HW title contender but got knocked out in his last fight)
Jason Lambert (lost three fights in a row)
These fighters join a long list consisting of: Travis Lutter, Marcus Aurelio, Din Thomas, Doug Evans, Kalib Starnes, Jake O’Brien, Charles McCarthy, Joe Doerksen, Tommy Speer, Jesse Taylor, etc.

Hope you enjoyed catching up on MMA news, now you don’t have to look like an idiot when people start talking about Brock Lesnar, Randy Couture or other fighters.

Rashad Evans culminated, and perhaps saved a night of less than stellar performances with one single punch. Evans survived the first round against “The Iceman” without much damage. But he really seemed to find his game plan a minute into the second round. Evans began landing left hooks and jabs against Liddell and soon found himself in the comfort zone. After a few exchanges, Chuck began to stalk his opponent, Rashad was backed up near the cage when he faked a jab and followed it with a beautiful over hand right that landed cleanly on Chuck’s chin, sending the former light heavyweight champion face first into the canvas. There was no doubt the fight was over with just one punch. The victory earned Rashad Evans KO of the night ($60k) and a shot against Forrest Griffin, perhaps as soon as December 27th.

None of the rest of the fights had the shocking value that the Evans vs. Liddell had. Nate Marquardt looked very impressive against a very well-rounded and exciting, but perhaps outclassed and outsized Martin Kampmann. Nate came out strong and soon had the Danish kickboxer in trouble after a left head kick landed and sent Kampmann stumbling against the cage. Marquardt peppered Kampmann with short elbows, hooks, knees and uppercuts until the referee stepped in to save Kampmann from any more damage.

Dan Henderson played it safe against a very underrated Rousimar Palhares. Henderson used his legendary right hand to send Palhares stumbling to the ground several times, but was cautious to not fall into Palhares’ expertise, jiu-jitsu. Despite the caution, Henderson found himself near trouble several times but managed to escape. Palhares proved a tough opponent, but Henderson proved to be the more experienced fighter and executed a good game plan that earned him the victory and spared him from losing three fights in a row. It is nice to see Dan back to his winning ways, Henderson is at the very top of the middleweight rankings and would make for some very entertaining matches in the future.

Rich Franklin also had a very cautious gameplan against Matt Hamill. It wasn’t much of a secret that Hamill would be the better wrestler, so Franklin kept the fight on the feet and scored enough points to win the first two rounds. Hamill did manage to open a big cut above Franklin’s eye that had the doctors thinking about stopping the fight, but it was Franklin that finished the fight with a kick to the liver that sent Hamill to the ground. Franklin landed another couple of punches from the top before the referee stepped in to end the fight. After the victory, Rich Franklin hinted at staying at 205 pounds for the foreseeable future, although he does realize that it will not be an easy task to become competitive in the new division.

Matt Brown fought a tough fight, and showed some improvement, but did not do enough damage to be awarded the victory against Dong Hyun Kim. Kim won via split decision.

Tim Boetsch proved to be the better striker against an unknown Michael Patt. Boetsch won via TKO in the first round.

Jason MacDonald earned submission of the night ($60k) against Jason Lambert by rear naked choke in the second round.

I know, I know. There are lots of other MMA news out there. I never even wrote about UFC 87 and how great it was. But who cares?? Rachelle Leah is going to pose for Playboy, yes Playboy, yes Rachelle Leah, yes naked. Look for the issue to be out in about 3 months.

  

If you want more up to the minute mma news, then head over to redsweat, if you want to know which ring girl is posing nude on playboy then ManUp Wear’s blog is the place to be.

  

Now, if you are still disappointed that this article doesn’t have anything to do with mma, here, this just in, Manny Gamburyan sucks, you heard it here first, he sucks. I was jumping up and doing when Emerson knocked him out, yes I know, pure journalistic objectivity, no bias at all. Manny has always sucked and finally the fans got to see it. And my prediction as a fan is that Manny will continue to suck in the future…mark my words. Any Manny fans out there that want to tell me to tell Manny he sucks to his face, I will tell them that I can’t, I’m not a midget, whatever I say to him will be about 2 feet above his face.

  

I don’t even know if that’s Rachelle Leah slapping that girl’s ass in this picture, but it was just too good to not share with you guys. Enjoy…perverts now go back to manupwear and buy a bunch of shirts or I won’t post any more of these types of articles.

You ask, what do hot pictures of Gina Carano have to do with MMA?

  

Nothing!

  

But she’s super hot, so why are you complaining? Enjoy, and the reason ManUp Wear does things like this is because WE CAN.

  

Did I mention how hot Gina Carano is? see for yourself…

  

  

  

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You know the drill. We have another badass UFC contest with Redsweat. All you have to do is head over to redsweat.com and click on the UFC 87 contest banner on the right. Then comment your UFC 87 picks for a chance to WIN the grand prize from ManUp Wear. Remember to specify the round and time for the final bout between GSP and Fitch, as that will be the determining factor in case of a tie. Give it a try, it’s super easy and lots of fun. It will make watching UFC 87 a little more interesting knowing you have a chance to win the ManUp Wear prize package.

 

Stay tuned, we are working on a new website that will be easier to understand and navigate. August’s new winning design should be available in our store next week.

 

Be sure to stop by manupwear.com to vote on the latest submitted designs and shop for the hottest MMA threads and active wear.

 

When the cage closes, do you ManUp or TapouT?

 

ManUp!!

Here are my wild guesses about the UFC 87 outcomes, I say “wild guesses” because it IS MMA afterall, and we DO live in a world where Matt Serra can beat GSP and Keith Jardine can beat both Chuck Liddell and current champion Forrest Griffin, but not Houston Alexander.

  

So here we go:

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Gymtops.com has written a feature article about ManUp Wear, here’s what they had to say:

  

“Peer review and contribution clothing label, ManUp Wear, recently crowned a new winner to it’s design contest and has already begin sales on the “Pirate Skull Chainsaw Kiss” tee. For those who don’t know, ManUp wear is a clothing company that utilizes the web as an edge to keep it’s creations fresh and innovative by allowing their ManUp Wear community choose which designs best fit the company’s profile. Winning designs are paid $500 + revenue share if chosen.

ManUp Wear is also very active in the MMA community and has most recently sponsored a MMA prediction contest over at RedSweat.com, a MMA news blog.

If you want to join ManUp’s community of designers or just vote on some designs you would like to wear, visit the ManUp Wear website.”

  

Gymtops.com was created out of pure passion for mixed martial arts apparel and gear. Visit them often to keep up with the latest in MMA apparel from all the major companies.

  

A big thank you to Jay Tillery from gymtops for taking the time to write about us. We look forward to having many more of our latest winning designs featured on gymtops.com.

 Head over to redsweat.com for a chance to WIN a ManUp Wear Chrome Logo Opium Binge T-shirt.

  

The contest is simple, once you are at redsweat.com, click on the contest link on the right side of the page. Then leave a comment with your picks for this Saturday’s Elite XC event. Remember to put the round and time only for the last bout between Lawler and Smith as this will be the deciding factor should there be a tie between contest participants.

    

ManUp Wear has teamed up with redsweat.com to give you great contests for every major MMA event along with the latest MMA news.

    

Give it a try, what do you have to lose? You can be the lucky winner and get to wear our awesome opium binge shirt. Good luck everybody.

    

Check out our 25% OFF SUMMER SALE at MANUPWEAR.COM. We are still offering FREE SHIPPING on orders of $30 or more.

Derek Brundage is the latest ManUp Wear contest winner, Derek took home $500 and will share on the revenue from his design. Derek’s Pirate Skull is now available in our online shop.

Be sure to participate in our t-shirt design contest for a chance to win $500 and be sold at manupwear.com

Don’t miss out on our 25% off summer sale. We are also still offering free shipping on orders of $30 or more.

Here is a picture of one of the shirts with Derek’s Pirate Skull design. Congratulations Derek!