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Lol, anything more than that?Comment -
"Makes no difference, just another contest, UFC, CFC, PFC, it makes no difference... KFC...which I'll be getting after this on Sunday ehhhh"!!
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Blog 2:
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It appears V has a new man crush.Comment -
ha just gettin the research in.... "Stayin ready so I dont have to get ready"!Comment -
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Dammmmmmmmnn...I used to go to same university as Rosi Sexton...interviewed her for a project I was doing once on Female's in Sport! Now she's gonna be fighting on main card of a UFC PPV!
Ariel Helwani @arielhelwani
Confirmed with UFC that the @alexisdavisMMA vs. @rosisexton fight will air on the 161 PPV-portion of the card.
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thats kind of f-cked up they put rousey in the main event and davis on the main card but sara mcmann on the fx prelimsDammmmmmmmnn...I used to go to same university as Rosi Sexton...interviewed her for a project I was doing once on Female's in Sport! Now she's gonna be fighting on main card of a UFC PPV!
Ariel Helwani @arielhelwani
Confirmed with UFC that the @alexisdavisMMA vs. @rosisexton fight will air on the 161 PPV-portion of the card.
Dana White has been ripping mcmann ever since he signed her. Telling the press she turned down the fights along with miesha tate. Then when Tate and Mcmann denied it, Dana only went after mcmann calling her a f-cking liar but never said anything about Tate.
Dana is shook.Comment -
ha yeah. I guess they are thinking Davis will be entertaining after that Kaufman fight, and Sexton has a good background story...single mother when she was young, got a 1st in Mathematics at Cambridge, a PHD in Theoretical Computer Science at Manchester, and a qualified Osteopath ..blah blah blahComment -
Melvin Guillard Breaks His Silence on the Blackzilians, Jackson's MMA and More
BY DAMON MARTIN
(FEATURED COLUMNIST) ON APRIL 5, 2013
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Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
It all started with a message on Twitter less than a week ago.
Melvin Guillard declared that he was leaving his camp at the Blackzilians and rejoining his old teammates at Jackson's MMA in New Mexico. It seemed simple enough at the time, but 24 hours later things became much more difficult.
Before Guillard could even pack his bags and head to the airport, he started seeing messages on Twitter that he was not going to be welcome back at Jackson's MMA, and he would have to find a new team.
Guillard explained when speaking to Bleacher Report on Thursday that the team at Jackson's MMA took a vote and ultimately decided against his return.
"I guess what happened was everybody read the tweet saying I was going back, and there were other things that happened. Some of the guys voted whether or not I was going to be able to go back or not, and some of the team was okay for it; some of the team wasn't. Coach Greg calls me up and tells me 'Melvin, some of the guys are for it, some aren't, so for right now my answer would have to be no. Maybe if some of the guys over time have a change of heart or whatever then it can be yes at some point, but just not right now,'" Guillard explained. I still have the invitation, it's still a possibility I can go, but at this point in my career I just turned 30 years old; I'm beginning that journey down the hill.
"I'm on the down slope of my career, and right now it's about getting as many wins as I can, and being able to even fight for a UFC lightweight title."
At first the news about being denied a return to Jackson's camp came as a shock, and after shock came some anger from Guillard, who couldn't understand why his former teammates would opt against him coming back there again. It took some wise words from his wife to make him understand just how the team at his former gym probably felt when he left to go train with the Blackzilians in Florida right in the midst of a war between two of the team's top fighters.
"There's no hard feelings. It is what it is," Guillard stated. "When you really look at the situation, I left Jackson's at a critical time. I left when Rashad (Evans) and Jon (Jones) was going through their little beef, and I took myself out of the equation and my wife made me look at it like this—take yourself out of the situation and look at someone else. 'If someone else had left the team and went to an opposing team and then tried to go back to that team, how would you feel about that?' I said, 'yeah you've got a good point.' That's kind of how it looked. Even though it wasn't like that, that's what it looked like to them."
Guillard holds no ill will towards the team at Jackson's the same way he has nothing against his former team at the Blackzilians. While Guillard admits the move to Florida was great for his home life, it didn't do as much as he hoped for his professional career.
During his time with the team, Guillard went 1-4 overall and to hear him explain it, he just never felt like he quite fit in with the coaches and other fighters there. Last week he knew it was time to move on.
"It was just me as a person, on a chemistry side I just didn't fit," Guillard said. "I just felt like it was time to go. I've got to go somewhere where I can get back to winning fights. Right now my job is probably on the line and my upcoming fight is a must-win fight. I feel like I need to do good work to get that win. That's why my decision was made.
"I love Florida and I don't think I'll ever leave Florida, but that said, I was kind of like a loner. I was an outsider. I was there when it was time to train, but I just didn't think it was fair to the other guys that were there. I think that was a reason why I had to leave as well—because it wasn't being fair to the other guys on the team."
When he first decided to leave the Blackzilians, Guillard admits he thought about joining American Top Team, another huge camp in Florida but because of a past strained relationship between that team and his manager Glenn Robinson, he didn't want to "put gasoline on the fire". For a few days, Guillard was a fighter without a home, but all it took was a call from a close friend and old mentor to set things back on track.
Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
"Pat Barry called me when the tweets started going around that I got denied at Jackson's. Pat Barry calls me and goes 'I want you to call Coach Leister (Bowling), he's the wrestling coach out there atMusclePharm, and he works with a lot of great guys,'" said Guillard. "Me and Pat go way back since New Orleans, fighting when I was 16 years old. Pat's been like my big brother my whole career.
"When he reached out to me it was kind of cool. It was like a big brother saying it's time to get your butt back home and come train with me and that's kind of how I took it."
Leister Bowling is the head wrestling coach at the Grudge Training Center, where he works with several top UFC fighters including Shane Carwin and Brendan Schaub, and the head coach there is striking guru Trevor Wittman. Guillard and Wittman actually crossed paths before and even worked together briefly when he was preparing for his bout in Denver against Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone at UFC 150.
Quickly Guillard packed up a few things, boarded a plane to Colorado and sat down with Wittman to plot a course for his training camp and begin work on rebuilding "The Young Assassin."
"Coach Trevor welcomed me with open arms," said Guillard. "We put everything out on the table up front, we discussed what we needed to discuss and now we're on the same page. It works."
At home in Florida, Guillard was greeted everyday by his wife and he was able to relax on his couch and play video games on his giant screen television. Now he's literally living in the basement at the gym and the only thing he does is eat, sleep and train.
Guillard is looking to redeem himself on July 27 when he meets Mac Danzig at UFC on Fox 8, and between now and then the only thing on his mind is getting back to the place that saw him only one fight away from a UFC lightweight title shot less than two years ago.
"It's like watching that Rocky III movie," said Guillard. "It's like where you lose that hunger and you've got to go back to where you started and go back to the gutter and get hungry again. That's kind of how I feel sleeping in this basement. I need this basement, I'm going to stay down here in this basement. Right now I'm loving my little basement cot."
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This kind of shit needs to be in the monthly mma thread Vaugy!!! BY the way i just cringe watching these guys jumping up and down with weights. The worst thing u could do for your back. I guarantee u that down the road we are gonna hear about Bispings having back issues (something we never heard). Some of these trainers are absolute clowns with this jumping in the air, with weights in your hands. I saw Carwin doing this same shit after his surgery. Sure enuf he goes out with back problems. I twitted him and said "for an engineer u didn't realize this wasn't good for your back?" Still waiting for his response. How could this possibly be good for ur disc and spine?Comment -
lol
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EXCLUSIVE (Part 1) | TJ Grant On Moving To 155, TRT, Weed & More | BJPENN.COM RADIO
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Wednesday night, UFC lightweight fighter, TJ Grant, spoke with BJPenn.com Radio in the midst of his training for a May 25 fight against former title-contender, Gray Maynard. For Grant (20-5), this will be his fifth fight at 155 lbs, a weight-class in which he has found enormous success. He is 4-0 at lightweight, with one submission, two unanimous decisions and most recently, an impressive KO over Matt Wiman on the UFC on Fox 6 card.
About that fight, Grant said, “That fight had the makings of three rounds of a grueling fight, whether it be a slug fest or a battle on the ground, scrambling. I know Matt, he didn’t get to show what he’s all about that night, I know that. You can say that I fought a great fight. I did my job, and sometimes when you do that, he didn’t get to show [it]… You know, he’s had a ton of fights, a ton of battles, and I knew that was where his strong point was: getting it in to mix it up. I took the more technical approach. I just tried to be devastating and be elusive at the same time, frustrate him a bit. It all worked out. I could sit here a bit and say that’s exactly what we hoped for- it really was- but how often does that happen?”
That fight last January only further legitimized TJ Grant’s steady climb amidst the 155 lbs. rankings. For him, the drop in weight has proved to be a huge benefit, allowing him to showcase his skills more comfortably.
“When I was fighting at 170,” said Grant about his drop to lightweight, “every single time that I fought, [I would] get on the scale, and I’d be thinking, ‘Man, this guy’s going to be 190 tomorrow.’ I was chubby, I was like 182 sometimes when I fought, sometimes less than 180.”
The realization he needed to change came with his last fight, and loss, at 170 lbs. against Brazilian jiu jitsu phenom, Ricardo Almeida. Grant described him being “so technically good, it was like he negated my technique because he was so big… I was glad I made the switch. They’re so densely muscled at 170. You know, at 55, I feel like I can get into scrambles. If a guy takes me down it’s not the end of the world. That was kind of my Achilles’ heel early on, guys just taking me down and being on top of me. When you’re giving up 15-20 pounds of solid muscle in a fight, it’s tough to overcome that. Especially when you’re fighting at the highest level. I wouldn’t even be open to going up or down again, I’m staying at 155. It’s my home for sure.”
Of course, there are fighters who have made a habit of fighting at in multiple weight-classes. BJ Penn and Randy Couture are two fighters who each held belts in two weight-classes. Current UFC middleweight champion and pound-for-pound king, Anderson Silva, has kept his unbeaten record in the UFC while continuing to jump up to 205 lbs. for fights. For Grant, however, that extra weight is something not easily overcome. Citing BJ Penn’s two recent losses at the tail-end of his move up to welterweight from lightweight, Grant said, “I don’t think that BJ should have ever left 155; but he went up, and he did well at 170, and he won titles, you know, he accomplished a lot. I feel like the sport has just evolved, you’re fighting guys that not only are getting technically better, but they’re finding ways within the rules to compete and win- you know, using the cage, using their size, using the time limits, I’m not knocking that, it’s a sport and that’s the way it’s going to be- I feel like there’s weight-classes for a reason. Props to him, he went up there and fought Rory [McDonald], he fought all these great fighters and done well, but I really feel like BJ Penn could be a force still at 155. You know, that’s just what I think.”
Any discussion of weight-classes and size-advantage in MMA inevitably turns to the hot topic of performance enhancing drugs that has been making headlines for quite some time. In recent years, MMA has seen many of its fighters turning to Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) as a means to elevate their testosterone levels to ‘normal.’ Allegations have been made about the causes of the fighters’ otherwise lowered levels, but the athletic commissions continue to allow TRT as a common practice. All the more attention has turned to the commissions’ continued disallowance of marijuana for fighters, a drug which very few people would label as performance enhancing.
On these issues, TJ Grant spoke honestly, saying, “All I know is with my personal experience just training. There’s not enough days in the week. If you want to train to be a mixed martial artist, you got to cover all the bases. There’s so much to learn, to be a good grappler, to be a good striker, to be a well-conditioned athlete. There’s really just not enough time, you’re body just can’t recover in order to really [drive]. That’s why I feel I train as much as I can all year around, because your body can get burnt out really easy. I think it’s unfair if people do steroids, that’s one thing I’m completely against 100%; TRT, you know, I don’t think I’d ever even think about taking it. To me it’s not fair, you know what I mean, especially guys that have been tested in the past and [who] failed drug tests. If they say that can cause your body to stop producing the same amount of testosterone, that’s kind of the repercussions you almost deserve for using in the past. That’s the way I feel about it…
“As far as the pot, I don’t care if people smoke weed. I’m from Canada, and it’s pretty liberal up here, people smoke and it’s not that big a deal. It doesn’t really help you, I just wonder what people’s logic is. Why do you test positive for something that is banned? Why don’t you just not smoke it for like four weeks, or whatever you got to do? How do you get caught? How do you get caught two or three times? Like Matt Riddle got caught multiple times. He’s had his best performances [stripped], he’s got two of his last three fights overturned. You got to use your head a little bit… Don’t get caught. It’s weed, man, smoke it and then stop smoking it before your fight. Then you’re good. Some people, they test to the point where they must have smoked it the day before. I guess some people have anxiety and stuff and smoke it, I guess that’s what they got to do, but I don’t know. It’s not for me. I would never smoke the stuff anyway, I just can’t function on it. Say no to drugs.”
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Depends if the spine is in neutral when landing. From this clip it looks like most of the flexion is done by the hip joint, which relieves the stress put on the lower back. Done incorrectly youre obviously running the risk of getting prolapses and back problems. Although these guys probably tolerate a bit more stress to the spine than we do. Nice comment to carwin.Comment -
Plays so far are McGregor @ -110, Pickett @ -137 at moment but will be arbing out some later to bring it down to Evens, and Peralta in a treble with Rick Hawn and JDS.Comment -
Nice. Were on the same guys. I also have small plays on couture dec @ 7.48 and garza @ 5.75.Comment -
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Wouldnt be surprised if Brimage tries to use a Frankie Edgaresq gameplan with just constant movement to try and frustrate Conor who may get carried away and just go head-hunting. Only concern is Brimage scraping a decisionComment -
i got a few squidz on mcgregor as well. gl to us
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as I've just put above Im on McGregor @ -110. Or am I the only one that can see that?