The crew is coming over. The Mickey’s Malt Liquor is on ice. I have my copy of perhaps the greatest martial arts film ever, “Only the Strong,” to show before the PPV. Best dialogue in any movie:
“This time, I play keeps.”
“This time, I don’t play.”
What does all of this mean? It means there’s a UFC PPV on this evening, but before we get there we must first…
COUNTDOWN TO UFC 68: THE UPRISING
As has been the case for the past few PPV’s, Spike TV has had a “Countdown” where they preview some of the top matches and get you all psyched for the big show. “Countdown to UFC 68” focused on the top three: Sylvia/Couture, Franklin/MacDonald, and Hughes/Lytle.
And Joe Rogan looked like he was stoned out of his gourd. It was mad funny to watch.
TIM SYLVIA VS. RANDY COUTURE
They started off with the same smack talking they’ve been showing, and I think it may have even been the same video they showed on “Inside the UFC” a few weeks ago. Couture says that Sylvia doesn’t fight to win; he fights to keep his title. Sylvia basically replies by saying “Fuck you old man. I’m going to knock you out.” The only real difference, besides revealing that they are kinda close friends, was that they featured a montage of “The Natural’s” title victories.
Then we went to watch Sylvia train in the mecca of mixed martial arts…Bettendorf, Iowa. On a side note, how cool is it that the mecca is in Iowa? When the 217 people running for President are on the stump in Iowa, I’d like to see one of them campaigning with Matt Hughes and Pat Militech. I don’t care if it’s Sam Brownback or Dennis Kucinich, that might give them my vote. But this is iFights and not Moodspins, so let’s get back to the countdown…
Sylvia has been training like he always does – rolling with cats like Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes. The only real change he made was that since he knows Couture is going to try and take him down with a trip, he’s been working on defending against that. Tim also made a point about his conditioning that people over look. His last two fights went a full five rounds each, and he was fine. The only of Randy’s fights he saw go five rounds, he was gassed.
Couture for his part admits that he has work to do. He could probably go five rounds with guys his own size, but Tim Sylvia is considerably bigger. So he’s been training with as many 6’8″, 300 pounds he could get his hands on. He’s also been working on his submission game with Dean Lister and considers himself to be a smarter fighter. His game plan is to frustrate Sylvia and then attack when he makes a mistake.
RICH FRANKLIN VS. JASON MACDONALD
This is an extremely interesting fight. Franklin is making his big comeback after losing the middleweight title, and he’s got a guy who has proven that he’s not a stepping stone for anyone. Jason MacDonald is not joke. He was originally brought it for Ed Herman’s first fight after TUF3, and surprised everyone with a tap out victory. He then went on to choke out Chris Leben. A victory over Rich Franklin almost guarantees Jason MacDonald a title shot, and he’s going into this fight accordingly.
MacDonald moved to New Mexico to train with Greg Jackson and a few nameless fighters…like Rashad Evans, Keith Jardine, Nate Marquardt, and Diego Sanchez. Jackson says they’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose. If Franklin loses, that’s two in a row. If MacDonald loses, it’s one loss to the former champion. If he wins, it’s a shot at the middleweight title. Mentally, that’s his focus while he trains.
Rich Franklin to me is an interesting fighter, an “American fighter” even. He seems like a pretty non-descript, boring guy. But when you look closer you see that he went undefeated for three years before suffering his first loss, then another three years before his second loss. Now that he’s had time to review the Anderson Sylva fight, he’s made two major changes to his training. One is that, instead of working with different camps, he’s sticking with one. He didn’t specify which one, but they showed clips of him sparring with Sylvia and Matt Hughes throughout the show.
The other change is that he’s taking an EXTRA day off from training a week. He’s taking a second day off to heel both physically and mentally, and is just working harder the other five days of the week. The rest of his training is designed specifically for MacDonald’s strength and weaknesses. Like, he’s assuming MacDonald is going to try and take him down and go for the tap out, so Franklin has been focusing a lot on his sprawl and his submission defense.
MATT HUGHES VS. CHRIS LYTLE
Hughes summed up this match best…Lytle is going from being what he perceives to be “robbed” by his loss against Matt Serra and wants to go after Matt Hughes. Even the announcers didn’t sound like they were giving Lytle much of a chance, but were trying their best not to make it look like that. So sayeth Joe Rogan, “No one expects him to win except for Chris Lytle, and maybe his wife.” I think it’s less about him not having “a chance,” and more about the fact that pound for pound Matt Hughes is one of the top five fighters in the UFC.
Hughes sees this as a must win situation, and though he said otherwise, I was under the impression that he was looking past Hughes and training for his rematch against Georges St. Pierre. There are two key points to his training. One is to work on his size, and it looked like he was working a lot on strength training. The second was to go back to what brought him to the dance: grab his opponent, slam him down, and beat the crap out of him until the referee tells him to stop.
Chris Lytle sees Hughes as be weak susceptible to takedowns and submission, which are two of his specialties, so that’s what the main focus of his training has been. He admits that normally too cautious and his fights, but this one he’s going for an early victory. Good luck with that.
I really don’t meat to come off as that sarcastic, and Lord knows that Chris Lytle would kick my ass. But I got the impression that not even the UFC expects this match to even be close. It’s like they put it together because they’re expecting a dominate Matt Hughes victory in the first round. If Lytle does pull off an upset…it’s be huge!
So there you have it. Consider UFC 68: The Uprising counted down. Make sure you come back later today for iFights full preview of the show, and the most comprehensive recap you’ll find anywhere in the internet.
‘Nuff Said.
