UFC is notorious about being very aggressive about protecting their material. However, high-quality videos of full UFC fights have been showing up.
This is a particularly interesting fight for me, because this was a coming-of-age for Junior Dos Santos. I also hate Gilbert Yvel, who I think is mentally sick, so it’s nice seeing him lose.
Full fight below!
I don’t think I’m exaggerating either. When I first read the headline that these two would be facing each other, I thought it had be a mistake – a joke headline.
But, alas, it was true. The UFC seems to have really lost its way. I haven’t been actively interested in the UFC for at least a year. All the big fights that I’ve wanted to see have either been cancelled or just never put together.
Instead, what the fans are left with, are hamburger helper match-ups, fights that are hastily put together when the original fight falls through.
There seem to be so few big-money match-ups left in the UFC, that what we’re left with is Anderson Silva vs Stephan Bonnar. I can’t remember the last time Bonnar won a fight of any relevance. He was manhandled by Rashad Evans and lost to Forrest Griffin, if that tells you anything.
The UFC really needs to get its sh*t together, because it’s in danger of losing a lot of its relevancy. MMA is such a young sport as it is, and it seems to be lacking potential stars and big-money fights.
Out of all the opponents that Anderson Silva has faced in his lengthy career, it appears to me that Chael Sonnen is the only one that he truly dislikes. Sonnen, a cocky conservative loudmouth from Portland, Oregon has purposely tried to antagonize Silva as much as possible in hopes for a re-match. I’m looking forward to their re-match, and I want to see if Silva can redeem his poor performance in their last match. Because, realistically, Chael Sonnen made Anderson Silva look very beatable, perhaps the only man to do so since Silva knocked out Rich Franklin twice in a row.
UFC ring-girl, Arianny Celeste, wasn’t able to be at the last UFC event, because of a domestic abuse charge she was facing. Everyone thought it involved her and Tiki Ghosn, but in fact involved some other guy named Praveen Chandra instead.
I’m pretty neutral towards UFC ring-girls, but after looking at the photo of Celeste, it’s pretty obvious that she’s got some issues going on in her personal life. She was charged with kicking Chandra in the face earlier in the night. Dana White has said that he’s sticking by Arianny, and she still has a job with the UFC.
Dana White has unofficially confirmed recently that Junior Dos Santos will have a re-match with Cain Velasquez. I find this to be a VERY intriguing match-up. On paper, I would choose Cain to win, because I believe that he is a more well-rounded fighter than Dos Santos. I would argue that his knockout loss to Dos Santos was a fluke. But Dos Santos has managed to spark Fabricio Werdum and he recently stopped Frank Mir in the second round, so maybe Dos Santos is really just that good.
Dos Santos is a guy that makes me scratch my head, because he seems like such a limited fighter, and yet has been the most dominant force the heavyweight division has seen in a while. While Cain should definitely not strike with Dos Santos, Cain has been training with Robert Garcia at his boxing academy, and has shown he has heavy hands.
Also, Cain just had a really impressive win over large heavyweight Antonio Silva, so he seems to be back in top-form. While I know that Dos Santos will be the favorite, I’m very intrigued to see what Cain can do with Dos Santos, if he’s able to take him down and avoid getting knocked out.
Dakota Cochrane, the gay-for-pay ex-adult performer, didn’t even qualify to enter the Ultimate Fighter House. Despite all the hype and controversy generated by his past, those that hated his participation will no longer need to be concerned with him. They can watch The Ultimate Fighter show without being befuddled by Dakota Cochrane, and his appearance in SIXTEEN adult-themed videos targeted towards men.
He lost to Michael Vick via split decision, not gaining entry into the Ultimate Fighter House. He also then subsequently lost another match March 30th to Cliff Right Via RNC. At this point, I’m thinking Dakota Cochrane might have more luck returning to his previous career, LOL.
Mark Hunt vs Ben Rothwell was a UFC fight that I didn’t expect to find entertaining. The only reason I watched, was because I had thought Mark Hunt was a kickboxer and not a MMA fighter, and was curious to see how he would perform. Last I heard of the tubby Samoan was that he was viciously knocked out by the much smaller Melvin Manhoef.
Little did I know that by the end I would be a new fan of Mark Hunt. I think it was watching him defy the odds by going for an unlikely armbar on Rothwell, and somehow out-striking and backing down the exhausted Ben Rothwell in the third round to win the decision. Granted, Ben Rothwell looked terrible, but I had thought previously there was no way that Mark Hunt would ever win any matches in the UFC.
The only reason he was fighting in the UFC, because he had an iron-clad contract with Pride, and UFC couldn’t cut him. Mark Hunt, himself, is a soft-spoken man who has always had a body that looked more suited to drinking beer than fighting. I think that’s why I like him. He is someone that the UFC obviously didn’t think had anything left, but he proved them wrong.
So imagine my delight when Mark Hunt was able to knock-out Cheick Kongo, the man who looks like an African god. Comparatively, on looks alone, there was no way that Mark Hunt could win. But he was able to knock-out Kongo and continue his Cinderella story. I’m not sure it can go much farther, but already it shows that an old dog CAN learn new tricks. To be a K1 mainstay and somehow transition to the foreign world of MMA shows that Mark Hunt has a lot more talent than I or anyone else gave him credit for. Look at him! He’s 100% Samoan!
The UFC continues to go through its ring-girls like toilet paper. With the exception of Queen Bee Arianny Celeste, the list continues to grow: Logan Stanton, Natasha Wicks lasted three whole months, Edith Labelle… and now Chandella Powell.
For whatever reason, Chandella seemed to get a lot of hate on MMA message boards about her looks and I can’t help but think it was race-related. The closest thing that the UFC had to a woman of color is Arianny, who I guess technically is a Latina mix of some sort. Either way, Chandella had a bubbly personality, a great smile, and was in terrific shape. She seemed fully qualified to be a ring girl.
Unfortunately, she was recently outed by Joe Rogan as having done some adult-related work in the past. There were rumors flying about whether she was fired or not, but with her latest no-show at the Japanese UFC event, it appears that Chandella is officially gone. This is reminiscent of the situation with Edith Labelle, the French-Canadian ring-girl who wasn’t present at some UFC events before being let go.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that they let Chandella go over this, although the issue might be that she lied on her application. Either way, I don’t think her modeling past stops her from being a good ring-girl, or takes away from her appeal. She seems like a nice person, and I hope she goes on to better things than walking around a UFC Octagon holding a ring card. Everyone has a past and made mistakes, so I wish her the best.
Emanuel ‘Manny’ Yarborough is the man in the middle, and he fought and lost to a guy named Keith Hackney in the first UFC, despite being two hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller.
Nowadays most UFC fighters are well-conditioned athletes like Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre, but back when UFC started it was universally hated by pretty much everyone. It started out as a rag-tag sport which threw sumo wrestlers vs kickboxers vs boxers with one glove against each other. Eventually, it has evolved into a real sport, where high-level athletes compete, but as a kid the spectacle of someone like Yarborough competing was actually kind of cool.
Like most sumo wrestlers, Manny did poor in combat sports, winning only one fight by “smother.” If your curiousity has gotten the better of you, here is the match where he faces an opponent that he outweighs by more than four hundred pounds. I won’t post the match he had with Hackney, because I think it’s too brutal. It appears in this match his opponent was more terrified than hurt when he tapped.
Dakota Cochrane, the member of the new Ultimate Fighter has come under recent scrutiny for his performances in adult-themed movies for gay men. In the macho world of combat sports, posturing and credibility is everything, so I think it’s great the UFC is able to think outside of the box and allow Dakota Cochrane to compete for a contract. He should be judged solely on his abilities inside the ring like everyone else.
On an interesting aside, Cochrane is actually married with two children. Not that it matter, but Cochrane claims he did the movies when he was a cash-strapped college student.
