UFC on Thursday Night

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Welcome to the pilot edition of…actually, I don’t even know what to call this yet. I’m deciding between “Inside the Inside the UFC” or “John’s Untitled UFC Column.” Anyways, my name is John Brodigan (hence title #2) and when you hear all those cute little wrestling websites talking about the UFC stealing away wrestling fans, I’m one of the cats they’re talking about.

I’m here to recap UFC’s Thursday Night line-up. Normally that means UFC Unleashed AND Inside the UFC (we’ll see what happens when The Ultimate Fighter comes back on April 5). Here’s the rub…there was no Inside the UFC last night. The week before, when I sent my writing sample in to apply for this gig, there was no Unleashed. So what we have here is a combination of the two*. Think of it as like issue #0 of a comic that you pick up at some cheesy ComicCon that gives you a preview of the series. Next week…that will be issue #1.

INSIDE INSIDE THE UFC – FEBRUARY 15, 2007

UPCOMING SHOWS
The next chance to spend your hard earned money on the UFC is March 3rd, when they present UFC: The Uprising from Columbus, Ohio. Besides Sylvia vs. Couture (more on them in a bit), they announced the next vict…err, opponents for Matt Hughes and Rich Franklin. Hughes will be taking on TUF4 runner up Chris Lytle, and Franklin will meet the “TUF Killa'” Jason MacDonald. It’ll be the first fights for Hughes and Franklin since they lost their titles, so you know someone will be getting a whoopin’. There’s also going to be light heavyweight bout between Jason “The Punisher” Lambert and Renato “Babalu” Sobral.

After that, it’s off to Texas for UFC: Shootout on April on April 7th. That’s where Matt Serra will be getting his welter weight title shot against Georges St. Pierre. They also announced Diego Sanchez vs. Josh Koscheck (most likely to determine who fights GSP after he beats Serra), Kendall Grove vs. Alan Belcher, and Pete Sell vs. Thales Leites.

Actually, I’m having a conflict of conscience with the GSP/Serra fight. Serra represents the 516 (Strong Island, yo) and I think he’s got a better shot than most people are giving him credit for. He’s the first American BJJ Black Belt (under Renzo Gracie) and his submission skills are sick. However GSP is pound for pound one of the top fighters in the world. He’s also a nice guy too. Instead of talking shit in his interviews, he’s preparing for Serra taking this once in a life time opportunity and throwing everything he has at him, and is training extra hard for him. I just don’t know.

TIM SYLVIA
It looked like a lot of this was footage from the upcoming “Countdown to UFC 68” special, because they filmed Sylvia, Hughes, and Franklin all training at the Miletich Fighting Systems Training Facility in the Mecca of mixed martial arts…Iowa. This was Tim Sylvia’s chance to respond to Randy Couture, who announced he was coming out of retirement in the same sentence he started the smack talking. Surprisingly enough, Sylvia was bothered by this.

And justifiably so. Sylvia is the world champion, and here’s a guy who is coming out of retirement after getting his ass kicked in his last two fights. Sylvia is bigger, younger, has more fights under his belt, and has a history of knocking people out. “The Manie-iac” said that he’s going to knock Couture out. Worse, he looks angry. Coture is a dead man walking.

EVERYTHING ELSE
Chuck Liddell did a photo shoot where they set his gloves on fire, and they interviewed the ringside doctors. Meh.

And since I have your attention, on UFC.com they officially announced UFC 70 in England. Some rumoured matches for this card include a Tito Oritz vs. Forrest Griffin rematch, Michael Bisping, Andre Arlovski, and Mirko Cro Cop vs….does it matter? They should really just put Cro Cop’s opponents in striped shirts and call them Henchman #3. When the referee asks them to touch gloves, I expect him to look the other guy dead in the eye and say, “I will break you.”

UFC UNLEASHED UNLEASHED – February 22, 2007

*Ok, this is kinda embarrassing with it being the first column and all, but we had a power shortage last night my DVR didn’t record Unleashed last night like it was supposed to. However I do know that Randy Couture made Mike Van Arsdale submit to the Anaconda Choke at UFC 54, Frank Mir disposed of Tank Abbot in 47 seconds at UFC 41, and Chuck Liddell avenged an earlier loss to Jeremy Horn with a TKO at UFC 54.

I don’t have a catchy sign off.