Since there's a SE Boxing Thread that evolved out of the PBF/Pac abortion, I thought we should have a SE MMA Thread as well. Threads for individual events don't do as well, they don't get too much traffic unless it's a huge fight, and they usually die shortly afterwards, leaving no place to talk/gossip/whatever about MMA inbetween big fight cards.

So here's the SE MMA Thread. Think of it as Threadzilla for MMA.

Upcoming events:

4/10



UFC 112 from Abu Dhabi

Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia
BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar
Matt Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie



4/17



Strikeforce: Nashville

Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields
Shinya Aoki vs. Gilbert Melendez
Gegard Mousasi vs. Muhammed 'King Mo' Lawal



4/24



WEC 48 on PPV

Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber
Ben Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone
Mike Brown vs. Manvel Gamburyan




5/8



UFC 113 from Quebec

Lyoto Machida vs. Shogun Rua
Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley
Kimbo Slice vs. Matt Mitrione
Patrick Cote vs. Alan Belcher




5/29 - Two events



UFC 114 From Las Vegas

Rampage Jackson vs. Rashad Evans
Forrest Griffin vs. Antonio Rogerio 'Lil Nog' Nogueira
Michael Bisping vs. Dan Miller

ALSO

DREAM 14

Not a lot of announced matchups for this card yet. So far

Nick Diaz vs. Hayato Sakurai

LHW GP with possible participants
Babalu Sobral
Gegard Mousasi
Sokoudjou

Also rumored to be on the card
Marius Zaromskis
Joachim Hansen


Current Hot Topics in MMA:

*UFC 112 Taking place in Abu Dhabi, the first UFC outside the 'western world' in a longtime.

*Fedor to the UFC? Again? Kevin Iole says it's more likely than ever. Dana says 'Fedor has become my obsession'.

*Also in the link above, Dana promises to bring a UFC to the troops in Afghanistan, and has his eyes on a show in China.

*TUF 11 is underway

*James Toney has signed with the UFC, first opponent still unknown

Saturday's UFC card isn't great, but I still feel like I owe it to myself to see it because of how good Penn and Silva are.

Fun facts about Abu Dhabi, location of tomorrow's UFC:

Abu Dhabi is home to the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) grappling championships, the world cup of no-gi grappling basically.

The Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan is the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces as well as virtually next in line to President of the United Arab Emirates. He's also a massive fan of BJJ/MMA. In 1993 he began to bring over Renzo Gracie to teach him BJJ, and is now a blackbelt.

BJJ is compulsory as physical education in schools in Abu Dhabi. That's why this random little country/emirate has so many BJJ/MMA fans.

The government of Abu Dhabi (read: the Sheik) is a 10% owner of Zuffa through their business arm Flash Entertainment. This is the first time the Fertitas and Dana have ever sold any of their ownership of Zuffa.

He's also one of the richest men in the world iirc.

Really, it made a lot of sense for him to be the guy that they finally sold a slice to.

Obscenely rich, can pay whatever Zuffa wanted? Check.

Actually knows MMA, follows MMA, is passionate about MMA? Has a legitimate martials arts background? Check. (He's been doing privates with Renzo before either of the Fertitas or Dana had ever heard of the UFC)

Has a ****load of international pull with political ties, business ties, etc? Can help with international expansion? Check.

Really, it's hard to imagine a better owner. He's definitely been good for the sport of BJJ over the years, hard to imagine anything but good things coming about because he's involved in MMA.

Ariel Hawani interviews a bunch of randoms in Abu Dhabi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1NO6...layer_embedded

Seems to be a very educated group of fans.

It's also a huge coup event-wise for Abu Dhabi in their constant rivalry with Dubai and their sheiks to be the big attraction city in the UAE, so I'm sure he didn't mind shelling out some extra dough. If you've seen any of the pictures from around the arena there or even in the city you can tell that went all out for the night.

Looking forward to 112 even though the top 3 matches are all hilarious mismatches. That said, Renzo subbing Hughes will make my MMA year.

Poor Faber. That match is going to be a slaughter; Aldo is just a buzzsaw at that weight class. I really can't think of anyone who is his physical equal at 145.

This is probably true. Really looking forward to the Henderson-Cerrone rematch though if it's anywhere near as good as their first fight. Which I thought Cerrone won fwiw.

I don't think the Faber fight is as much of a mismatch as you guys might. He impressed me a ton breaking his hand and still going the distance with Brown. Plus, he's a pretty good athlete as well.

If UFC 112 isn't a great card then what is?

Two p4p top 4 fighters defending their belts, that's pretty damn great.

Well, their respective fights aren't very competitive, that's the obvious knock. I know there's not much the UFC can do about it but two fights of -700 favorites is kind of lame. Especially after the last cards ME was exactly the same.

Also, there's usually at least one fight that's not a ME that I'm really excited for. Not the case here.

Name a fighter at MW for Anderson that is 'very competitive'

There isn't, he's that damn good.

Unless you think he should stop defending his title altogether, it's inevitable that he enters his title defenses a huge betting favorite.

I already alluded to that in my post. But I'd be way more excited if it was Sonnen or Belfort. So that might not be "very competitive" but one of the reasons I don't think this is a great card is that I"m dreading Silva-Leites 2.

I think Chael Sonnen is the best fight at 185 for Anderson. He's shown improved sub defense and if he can get Marquardt down so easily he should be able to get Silva down as well. He wouldn't be a favorite, of course, but he'd be a live underdog.

Maia has a shot, but he clearly has to get the fight down fast because he doesn't have a great skill set standing, and Anderson will end him quickly on the feet. If he gets him down, he's got a shot, but it has to be fast or it likely won't happen.

Sonnen was so impressive against Nate. Just mauled him. Especially impressive given how good Nate was in his last few fights.

Even if Sonnen would be less of an underdog, it's still the top p4p fighters in the world taking on somebody in the top 5 of his weight class.

And the co-main even is the #4 p4p fighter (and #1 lightweight) taking on someone top 10 in his weight class.

It's a very strong card.

It depends how you view strong. If having two great fighters makes it a strong card for you, that's fine.

In my opinion a true strong card is 5 good fights, preferably competitive. A card needs to hold up after viewing and I'm not sure this one will survive past the name power.

Watching the countdown right now. Silva is going to win very easily. Penn/Edgar will be entertaining. Matt Hughes is such an underrated **** talker. He knows how to sell a fight. He's also right about wrestling>bjj.

Renzo is awesome.

lol this is so true, called it his "american wrestling" through the whole buildup.

breaking: paul taylor is out of his fight today at UFC 112. Supposedly woke up this morning with a migrane, one of those 'extreme sensitivity/pain to bright lights, vomit if you move suddenly' migranes.

I think this is his first cut down to 155, so there's speculation that the cut is part of the reason for the migrane.

I really wonder about the safety of the extreme weight cuts that we see sometimes. Danny you probably know a lot more about it than me so feel free to correct but I was genuinely grossed out and worried for the health/safety of James Irvin after seeing him at the weigh in last month.

I think Jason Black probably looked the worst post-cut of any fighter I can remember (last 4-5 years)

Black post-cut:


Normal Black:

Also, 112's first PPV is on now. Out of fairness I'll use spoiler tags for those catching later.