International Olympic Committee Reinstates Wrestling

It has been voted on and wrestling will be added back to the Olympic games in 2020 and 2024. It seems as though the pussification of the public and the idiotic decision that was made to remove the oldest sport known to man was reversed. This does not mean that wrestling is in the core 25 sports of the Olympics games but for the time being a small battle has been won. Wrestling is probably the first combative sport to ever have been developed and was central to the origins of the first Olympic events. It is arguably the most central grappling art, which some believe almost all other grappling arts have been derived from. It deeply depressed me that anyone would ever even entertain the thought of removing this sport from what is supposed to be the top tier of events for amateur wrestlers. The effects of no longer having wrestling in the Olympics reaches far beyond just the Olympic mats, it could very well have an effect on many other sports and influence what career paths many wrestlers could possibly take after finishing their high school and collegiate careers.

The implications of removing wrestling from the Olympics spreads over many different areas in the martial arts world because it is pretty much common knowledge that wrestling is central to Mixed Martial Arts and other combative disciplines. Most wrestlers have a distinct advantage because they develop many attributes that serve very well in combative arts. Coordination, flexibility, strength, explosiveness as well as knowledge of managing their weight and weight cutting all are important aspects of combative disciplines. All of these attributes overlap and carry over into sports such as Mixed Martial Arts, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Judo, Submission Grappling and even into striking arts such as Boxing and Muay Thai. Many of MMA's top athletes have backgrounds in amateur wrestling. The decision to remove wrestling from the Olympics completely voids any possibility of continuing amateur wrestling after college and high school and may destroy the incentive for some wrestlers to begin wrestling at all. Some also argue this decision was made because of a general softening of the general public which now seems comfortable watching mundane sports that require very little athletic ability. These sports are deemed entertaining by those who advertise during the Olympics and care solely about their own marketing strategy and making the Olympic games profitable. The Olympics have become more of an investment for these companies and they do not care whether or not they effect the general public by pushing sports on the general public that do not require the extremely demanding physical and mental requirements to excel in a sport such as wrestling. I fear that young men of all ages will grow up and not get the chance to experience the physical improvements and benefits combative sports such as wrestling have to offer. I know from my own personal experience with Judo, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai I have learned to deal with mental and physical stress as well as pure pain. These are things I believe provide valuable experience in learning your own thresholds and what you are capable of enduring. It is because of this I have learned that only hard world and discipline are keys to becoming a successful person in every facet of life.

I am glad that wrestling has been brought back, even if it is just for now. I do however have confidence that the rest of the world and all the wrestlers in it will do everything they can to make sure that wrestling is brought back to it's permanent place in the Olympics. I feel confident that the voices of wrestlers, coaches and fans all over the world will continue to voice their opinion and will not allow for this great and ancient sport to die out because of politics and idiotic decision making by the International Olympic Committee. If we don't do something about it now we can expect to see the disappearance of all combat sports in the Olympics, which after all is where the Olympics began.

HD Fight Series in Matthews NC this Saturday

Don't know much about this event or who runs it, but it goes down in Matthews NC just outside of Charlotte this Saturday.

9205 E.Independence Blvd.
Matthews, North Carolina
United States

HDFightSeries.com

Full Card:

Lawrence Dennis vs Adam Glenn

Tony Tan vs Eric Calderon

Sean Goode vs Gary Wingfield

Rashad Hood vs Matthew Grant

Bradley Guyer vs Aaron Brooks

Rafael Morel vs Lonnie Price III

Stephen Strausser vs Everett Draughan

Billy Sowards vs Nick Symeuangxay

Anthony Morrison vs Chrisopher Jones

Chris Alcala vs Kelly Wilkins

Johnny Boyd vs Robert Moore

Luke Milligan vs Demont Washington

Devin Nguyen vs William Smoot

Ashley Hancock vs Lisette Galvan

UFC Fight Night: Teixeira vs Bader

Teixeira is on a nineteen fight win streak and I have a small piece of me that is hoping that at some point he lands a fight against Jon Jones. Never being a fan of Jon Jones because I have always believed that he is a complete hypocrite, which was cemented after he wrecked his Bentley and got a DUI. Jones is the type of guy that I love to hate, claiming that he can "carry the cross" for the UFC as well as be a good face for the company. I hope and pray that Teixeira walks through Ryan Bader tonight, not because I have any dislike for Ryan Bader even though I feel he is a bit over-rated but because I am dying to see someone put Jones in his place. It's pretty clear that the UFC will do everything they can to preserve Jon Jones pristine image and for a long time I also feel like they were feeding him fights that they knew he would win. Either way Teixeira has always struck me as a solid competitor who doesn't seem the least bit intimated about taking a fight against Jon Jones. I would not want to be in Ryan Bader's position right now. He certainly does not have a sterling record in the UFC and everyone knows that if he takes another loss tonight he may only get one more fight (if he's lucky) and he'll most likely get his walking papers. I guess there is always Bellator.

One other match up I am probably more excited to see is Yushin Okami vs Jacare Souza. Everyone knows that Jacare's ground work is simply something to behold. He has 14 of his 18 wins coming by submission and once the fight hit the mat with Carmozzi, Jacare put him to sleep in a matter of seconds with an arm triangle. Yushin is definitely a game opponent but I'm interested to see if he is capable of keeping the fight standing or at least be able to score some take downs and land some shots using his ground and pound. Yushin would still have to be very careful in order to avoid becoming another victim of Jacare's submission game.

I am not one of the fans out there that completely ignore the lighter weight divisions but Benavidez is fighting someone I have never heard of. Benavidez has a good scrap against Demetrious Johnson, dropping a split decision in a very close and technical fight and I'm sure this is a fight he is taking solely to keep his blood flowing before what I feel will be an imminent rematch with Johnson. A few other media outlets are calling this card complete "garbage" but it ironically enough these cards usually sometimes deliver more than the actual PPV events.


MAIN CARD (FOX Sports 1, 7 p.m. ET)

Ryan Bader vs. Glover Teixeira
Yushin Okami vs. Ronaldo Souza
Joseph Benavidez vs. Jussier Formiga
Piotr Hallmann vs. Francisco Trinaldo
Rafael Natal vs. Tor Troeng
Ali Bagautinov vs. Marcos Vinicius

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1, 5 p.m. ET)

Felipe Arantes vs. Edimilson Souza
Ramiro Hernandez vs. Lucas Martins
Elias Silverio vs. Joao Zeferino
Ivan Jorge vs. Keith Wisniewski

PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 4:30 p.m. ET)

Sean Spencer vs. Yuri Villefort

The Masher

I recently caught up with Matt Messer, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu brown belt under Jerry Moreno and currently competes as an amateur in mixed martial arts here in NC. I've had the chance to see him fight on numerous occasions and have always been impressed with his determination to make sure you get your money's worth. His fights have always been entertaining and I've seen him put on a hell of a show, always pushing the pace and leaving it all in the cage. Outside the cage he keeps things simple and likes to hang with his family and have a brew or two but is always trying to sharped his skill set and live a pretty straight and narrow life, preferring to keeping healthy and training to fight. Matt gives a little insight into what got him started and how he spends his down time, as well as some details about his own personal life. Check out the interview we did outside the Armory in Durham, at Bull City Brawl 12. Sorry if the lighting isn't spectacular but it was the only place we could find that was even close to being quiet enough to do outside the always deafening Armory.

'White' washing the UFC

To date I have always had my qualms with Dana White. I think that he is a very blunt and straight to the point type of guy who will give you a tough pill to swallow at times because he doesn't believe in candy coating anything for the press. I can admire someone who does not give a shit if people think he is callous and insensitive because sometimes it is important to show that you won't stand for anyone to question your judgement, especially when you are responsible for bringing a dying (and mostly illegal) sport into the limelight and building a multimillion dollar industry around it. That said I'm still not sure if he is someone that I should admire or hate because every time he seems to do something that is seems incredibly sincere he turns around and spews negative comments about anyone who demands answers to questions that may make him look bad.

I've followed Dana for a long time and watched a lot of his interviews and I think that over the past few years he has said a lot of things that he has regretted, such as stating the women will never fight in the UFC. We all know now that women in MMA ended up becoming extremely popular due to none other that Ronda Rousey. It wasn't until many people looked at Ronda and saw an extremely intelligent, accomplished athlete become the face for women in the UFC and allow the UFC to brand and market her and womens MMA. Not to stray too far off the subject but Dana seems to be very impulsive in his statements and when anyone comes around and throws this back in his face his response it typically vicious. I'm pretty sure that at this point since Dana and the Fertittas have a complete stranglehold on the MMA arena I believe that his hubris is going to eventually come back and bite him in the ass. He's already known for calling female reporters cunts and blacklisting anyone who sheds any negative light on his him or his organization.

But how long can Dana expect to get away with this type of behavior? If he or anyone else expects MMA to continue its exponential growth he needs to understand that there should be some kind of protocol to how he deals with the press and even fans in general. Starting typical twitter beefs and flaming people on public forums is just plain fucking juvenile. If someone blows up your twitter about how most of your most marketable fighters are juicing (by legal means or not) should you response by blasting them in public and blaming them for being pussies for not actually calling the UFC and making a legitimate request to speak with him or one of his representatives? I think that at this point Dana White needs to realize that he is going to have to be a bit more civilized or the people that call MMA 'human cockfighting' are going to have all the evidence they need to prove that MMA is nothing more than a barbaric sport, led by an callous prick who doesn't care who he offends. Mr White needs to take into account the fact that now that MMA is a legitimate sport, he needs to deal with these sorts of issues with some sort of decency and respect for those who are covering the sport and who only want to get the facts and help promote the sport that he helped build.

Nothing is Better Than Some Warm Bagels.

This is an interview that I did with a good friend of mine, John "Bagels" Telford. John will be defending his World Combat Federation 145 lb strap this weekend against James Ritchie in the Bull City this weekend. I mainly decided to interview Bagels after he made a good point that the local media does not cover much when it comes to MMA in North Carolina, and he was one of my main inspirations behind starting this blog. Hope you guys like it.

Bull City Brawl 11 Fight Card

Well, it's official. This is the card for this weekend's Bull City Brawl in Durham NC. Over the past few years Billy Dowey and Jason Culbreth have been putting together some pretty awesome cards and put on some great events in the Bull City. A few people to keep your eyes on if you end up making out to watch the fights this weekend:

Ricky Saxton

I've seen this guy fight a few times in the past and all I can say is that I have been pretty impressed with his overall skillset. He seems pretty comfortable wherever the fight goes and has excellent endurance. He's won most of the fights I've seen in pretty dominating fashion and usually seems pretty relaxed in the cage. He's coming into this fight with a perfect 5-0 record with three of those wins coming from stoppages. Keep your eye on him, we could see really good things from him in the future.

Cody Maltais

Currently a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and training with Team ROC here in Raleigh, recently came back from living in California where he was training with Team Quest. Currently sporting a 2-2 record coming into this fight, but do not let that fool you. Cody has an excellent skills on the ground and also has good takedowns as well. Watch out for his guillotine.

Official Fight Card:

Kyle Trujillo vs Daryl Jones
Ricky Saxton vs Jeff Roberts
John Telford vs James Ritchie
CJ Murdock vs Antoine Brown
Chad Tyler vs William Brown
James Quigg vs Rodney Jordan
Arthur Rivers vs Marcus Williams
Cody Maltais vs Matthew Probin
Jason Williamson vs Chris Wilburn
Joseph Poteat, jr vs Donald Watts
Marklin Bailey vs Aren Besson
Aaron Voncannon vs Mathew Johnson
Curtis Franz vs Harold Hubbard
Matthew Wetherington vs Bradley Lawrence
Cleveland Mclean vs Humza Ismail

The case against Lloyd Irvin

I can't help but weigh in myself on this whole situation that has been going on with Lloyd Irvin over the past couple of days. I think honestly at this point Lloyd has been making some mistakes that are going to really undermine his ability to continue to function in the BJJ and MMA community. Whether he was involved in a previous rape in 1989 or not, because he had two of his own instructors rape his own student he is going to have to accept the fact that most women who are interested in learning any type of self defense are going to steer clear of anyone relate to such charges.

I'm not going to get up in arms and rant about how heinous the crime was, but I am more interested in also understanding why Lloyd would jump on such an opportunity to promote his own rape prevention seminars. To me this is plain low. To be so blatant about profiting from the pain someone else has recently experienced to be is pretty appalling. Since the two men allegedly involved in the rape itself were caught on camera, I think it is safe to say that they will be spending a very long time in a very unforgiving place for rapists. This is another reason I am more interested right now in the way that Lloyd Irvin is handling this situation, especially when he should have at least shown some sort of compassion for the victim. Obviously his mind is on something completely different, in this case it seems to be money.

Some would like to argue that Lloyd Irvin is an accomplished instructor that has many elite credentials attached to his name because of his students success in the BJJ and MMA realm. Some would say that his overall success with these sports would mean that he has at least contributed to a lot of lives in a very positive way. Maybe this is true, but it is disturbing to me that he would even think about using this situation for monetary gain.

I sincerely hope that the victim and her family are able to receive any help and justice they deserve. As a part of the MMA and BJJ community we need to do as much as we can to preserve our integrity as human beings. I hope this incident doesn't permanently tarnish our reputation for helping create better people.

Bull City Brawl 11

We're less a month out from the next Bull City Brawl being held at the armory in Durham, North Carolina. As usual I'm excited to see some of the best guys from around North Carolina come out and thrown down. I still don't know as of yet whether or not the card is finalized, but we can rest assured that Billy is going to put something good together for the fight fans here in NC. The Durham Armory is a good place to check out fights because of the size of the venue and the balconies that give you a pretty awesome view of the action. One thing I have also noticed is that it is LOUD in the armory, you can almost feel when someone is getting hit.

I'm going to have to get back with everyone as soon as I get the full fight card and post it here pretty soon.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I am going to start out by saying that MMA in the south has grown tremendously since I started practicing BJJ close to seven years ago. I have seen countless amateur MMA fights, as well as some larger promotions that had some pretty professional events as well. I have watched a lot of my friends fight and win and also step up to some bigger shows and seen a few friends move away to train specifically for MMA. While this is all great, most of these guys no one knows. I'm hoping that this blog will help change that, as long as give some of the hard core fans some updates and coverage about local MMA events, as well as BJJ tournaments and the like.

That's it for now, expect good things this coming year and I hope that everyone is having a safe and fun holiday season.