Looks like we will see Junie Browning fight once more in the UFC. Junie and TUF season 8 winners Efrain Escudero and Ryan Bader will all be fighting on the UFN 18 main card.

Carlos Condit will either prove to the nay-sayers that he’s not just a great WEC fighter, but a great all around MMA fighter.

Efrain Escudero may have his hands full against Jeremy Stephens. Stephens doesn’t want to lose back-to-back fights, especially to a UFC newcomer.

Carmello Marrero was dropped from the UFC in 2007 after a 1-2 UFC record. He’s looking to perhaps show that he is still UFC material but he’s going to have to get through an enthusiastic fighter in Ryan Bader.

Junie Browning wants to prove once again that he’s not that fighter you saw on TUF season 8. Cole Miller, the TUF Season 5 contestant, has 3 wins and 1 loss in the UFC. His only loss being to Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 12. Junie Browning is a fair opponent but I doubt either fighter thinks this is going to be an easy fight.

Main Card

Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann

Efrain Escudero vs. Jeremy Stephens

Ryan Bader vs. Carmelo Marrero

Junie Browning vs. Cole Miller

Catch UFC Fight Night on April 1st, 2009 on Spike Tv.

Image: Spike TV

Post from: EveryJoe

UFC Fight Night 18 Confirmed Main Card

The Ultimate Fighter Season 8

Carmelo Marerro returns to the UFC after brief runs in the IFL and WCO. He was dropped from the UFC roster in 2007 after two consecutive loses. He got a contract with the WEC in 2008 and won over Steve Steinbeiss in a split decision at WEC 36. Seeing that the WEC no longer features light-heavyweight fighters, he was lucky enough to get a transfer to the UFC.

UFC Fight Night 18 is rumored to be taking place on April 1st.

Source: MMA Junkie.com

Image: Spike TV Press Content

Post from: EveryJoe

Ryan Bader Vs. Carmelo Marrero At UFC Fight Night 18

The Ultimate Finale aired Saturday night on Spike TV and it’s a good thing I’m not a gambling man because both of the fighters I picked to win…lost. That’s what makes MMA so exciting. You can think that a fighter will win based on how his skill in one of his disciplines is versus the others but it doesn’t always work out the way you expect it.

The non Televised fights results are as follows:

• Roli Delgado defeated John Polakowski with a guillotine choke at 2:18 in the second round
• Shane Nelson defeated George Roop in a split decision
• Tom Lawlor defeated Kyle Kingsbury with a unanimous decision
• Elliot Marshal Defeated Jules Brunchea with a rear naked choke 1:27 in the first round (This fight did get televised)

Results for the main card fights:

• Krzysztof Soszynski defeated Shane Primm with a kimura at 3:27 in round 2. Primm looked like he was in pain after the tap

Junie "The Lunatic" Browning defeated "Diamond" David Kaplan with an armbar at 1:32 in the second round. Just a note, Kaplan came out to the most un-fighter like music I’ve ever heard and was dancing around and looking like he was some disco star. Flaming Dave Kaplan would have probably been a better nickname. Junie apologized to both coaches and Dana White after the fight. He looked focused and fought well during the fight.

Wilson Gouveia defeated Jason MacDonald by submission with strikes at 2:18 in the first round.

Anthony Johnson defeated Kevin Burns with a monster kick that knocked  Burns at :28 in round 3.

Ryan Bader defeated Vinny Magalhaes with a KO at 2:18 in the first round. Looked more like a ref stoppage to me. Vinny got rocked and just ended up on the ground covering himself before the ref stopped it. I did not see this coming. I think Vinny was just waiting for the right opportunity to take it to the ground and has never been hit that hard. Ryan Bader wins to become The Ultimate Fighter 8 Light-Heavyweight contract winner.

Efrain Escudero defeated Phillipe Nover with a unanimous decision after 3 rounds. Another one I did not see coming. I really don’t know what to say about this fight except that Novar couldn’t find the opening for a jiu-jitsu submission and Escudero fought really good. He had a great offense and good defense against everything that Novar could throw at him. Efrain Escudero wins The Ultimate Fighter 8 lightweight contract.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Ultimate Finale Recap

Junie Browning showed some impressive skills when he fought Jose Aguilar on the first episode of The Ultimate Fighter 8. He made short work of Aguilar and impressed both Dana White and Frank Mir.

It wasn’t long after that we saw an alcohol fueled Junie Browning start acting childish and getting upset. Some pushing ensued but nothing serious happened. It didn’t stop there though, it happened a few times and the last time was shortly before Browning lost in the semifinals to Efrain Escudero.

In a recent article on MMA Junkie, Frank Mir talks about Browning and his placement on tomorrow night’s Ultimate Finale Fight card. He doesn’t feel that Browning deserves to be on the card and feels that the UFC has given him an undeserving opportunity.

"As far as him being on the main card, it does reward his behavior," Mir said. "I think in the future, it shows people who get on the show that as long as they act like a moron and idiot that they get to have time. And that face time equals money, so maybe they don’t have to put that much effort into fighting."

Since the show, Junie has moved to to Las Vegas and has been training at Xtreme Couture. Junie’s biggest complaint on the show was that he wasn’t getting good training. I can agree because from the footage we whenever really saw a lot of Frank Mir getting involved in training. He was sitting against the wall most of the time. Like I said though…that’s only what we saw on TV. If I were to state my opinion on just watching the show I would say that Mir is a good fighter but not a good coach, but that would be an unfair statement.

I think we can expect a good fight between Browning and Dave Kaplan on the Finale. Both showed some promise during the casting fights but neither of them showed much during their fights. Maybe we’ll get to see just how good the both of them are and who’s the better fighter. Kaplan claims he’s never been knocked out and Junie has shown that he can take a punch as well as throw some strong one. We’ll see what happens on Spike TV on Saturday.

Post from: EveryJoe

Frank Mir Speaks Out About Junie Browning

MAIN CARD

• Efrain Escudero vs. Phillipe Nover 
• Ryan Bader vs. Vinicius Magalhaes
• Wilson Gouveia vs. Jason MacDonald
• Kevin Burns vs. Anthony Johnson
• Junie Browning vs. Dave Kaplan

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Shane Primm vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
• Jules Bruchez VS. Eliot Marshall
• Kyle Kingsbury vs. Tom Lawlor
• Shane Nelson vs. George Roop
• John Polakowski vs. Rolando Delgado

Post from: EveryJoe

The Ultimate Finale Fight Card

Last night was the double episode for the Semifinals of The Ultimate Fighter Season 8. This season has gone by fast an as usual we see some crazy stuff happen in the house. Pranks and idiocy. The only fighter we really saw any in-house aggression from this year was Junie Browning and somehow he stayed around. All things must come to an end though. I’m going to keep the drama out of this recap and just give you the results.

Episode 11 opened up with Ryan Bader facing Elliot Marshall. Talk about a snoozing fight. This fight had a lot of boring stand up and even more boring ground game. It went three rounds and Ryan Bader gets the decision at the end of the third.

The lightweight bout pitted Philipe Novar against George Roop. I never thought George Roop had a chance in this fight and I was right. Novar catches Roop in a Kimura in the first round and force him to tap.

The first fight of episode 12 from last night put Light Heavyweights, Vinny Magalhaes up against Krzysztof Soszynski. Vinny’s stand up is kind of limited and Krysztof hit him with a lot of inside leg kicks. Vinny obviously wanted to take it to the ground but was cautious about it. When it finally went to the ground Vinny’s great jiu-jitsu went in to effect and he submitted Krysztof with an Arm Bar. I like Krysztof, but I didn’t think he had a chance on the ground.

The Lightweight Fight pitted a discouraged but over-confident and cocky Junie Browning up against Efrain Escudero. When the fight first started both fighters touched gloves and then Juie did a quick reach for the floor in a stretching exercise. This would have been a great opportunity for Escudero to kick him in the head, and I think he should have. Junie wasn’t setting up any good combination and when it finally went to the ground Escudero caught Junie in D’Arce Choke. Will this be the last we see of Junie Browning? Probably not.

Here is the final fights:

Ryan Bader Vs. Vinny Magalhaes (My pick: Vinny)

Philipe Novar Vs. Efrain Escudero (My pick: Novar)

I think it’s quite obvious that most people are going to pick the same fighters I did and for obvious reasons. Vinny is just too good on the ground and chances are he’s improved his stand up since the last episode was recorded. Bader has mediocre stand up and mediocre ground game. There’s no doubt that he has been working on his ground game in preparation for this fight but it won;t be nearly enough to stop Vinny’s Jiu-Jitsu.

Philipe hits hard and has good jiu-jitsu on the ground. Esudero has decent stand up but is more of a wrestler on the ground. I don;t think it will match up well against Novar.

Now as usual both of my picks are based on the fighters overall skill, but we all know that anything is possible and sometimes the best fighters get caught right on the button by the under-dog. We’ll see what happens next weekend.

So looking back at this season, I have a few things to say about the coaches. I think Nogueiro chose good assistants and created good cohesion inside his team. Frank Mir in my opinion did a shitty job of coaching. He did a lot of barking out advice from his corner during fights but I didn’t see a lot of coaching during training sessions. They did a lot of conditioning but when it was time for good coaching and fight training I saw Mir sitting up against the wall a lot. Notice Team Nogueiro had three fighters in the end and Mir had one and that was a guy that brought great Jiu-Jitsu skills with him so it doesn’t say much for Mir. Mir is a good fighter. A good coach? No.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Ultimate Fighter 8 Semifinal Results

Light Heavyweights

• Ryan Bader vs. Eliot Marshall
• Vinny Magalhaes vs. Krzysztof Soszynski

Lightweights

• Junie Browning vs. Efrain Escudero
• George Roop vs. Phillipe Nover

It’s hard to believe this season is almost over. Seems like it went by pretty quick.

Also on Wednesday night is WEC 37, where we will see Miguel Torres defend his Bantamweight championship title against Manny Tapia. This even will also be the last Light Heavyweight fight (Mark Munoz Vs. Ricardo Barros) in the WEC before the weight class is dissolved in 2009. This fight will probably not be televised though. Other fights on that card are:

• Brian Bowles vs. Will Ribeiro
• Wagnney Fabiano vs. Akitoshi Tamura
• Joseph Benavidez vs. Danny Martinez
• Johny Hendricks vs. Justin Haskins 
• Mark Munoz vs. Ricardo Barros
• Blas Avena vs. Kevin Knabjian
• Diego Nunes vs. Cole Province
• Alex Karalexis vs. Bart Palaszewski
• Hirouki Takaya vs. Cub Swanson
• Shane Roller vs. Mike Budnik

Post from: EveryJoe

MMA on TV This Week

First up, we saw an UFC and MMA Veteran lose his title to an MMA/UFC rookie with the Brock Lesnar Vs. Randy Couture fight. With the huge difference in weight between these tow fighters there has been a lot of people questioning if there should be a weigh class within the Heavyweight class. MMAWeekly.com presented this question to the Nevada Stats Athletic Commission. Their response was "This already exists", referring to the Super-Heavyweight class. Not really the answer they were shooting for, though. You can read what other SAC’s said at MMAWeekly.com.

This month also saw the dethroning of the WEC Featherweight Champ, Urijah Faber. Mike Brown caught Faber with a huge right in the first round of this highly anticipated fight and then capitalized on a stunned Faber and beat him in to a TKO (by punches, ref stoppage). Faber wants an immediate rematch in an attempt to reclaim his lost title, but we may see a Jens Pulver/Faber part 2 instead. I’d like to see someone else (like Leonard Garcia) face Mike Brown first, but Faber definitely deserves a shot again.

Within the last 2 months there has been more controversy with ProElite and EliteXC as ProElite shut down it’s operations leaving a lot of fighters in limbo and waiting to find out what the future holds for them. Will they become free agents or will their contracts be sold to another promotion?

Dana White has been running his mouth A LOT lately. Some say he’s become a huge ego-maniac and it’s bad for the sport. Being president of one of the biggest MMA promotion is a big responsibility. With the success of the UFC and Zuffa it’s tough for smaller promotions/competition to break through. With Dana White constantly talking trash and banning other promotions, clothing lines, etc. it doesn’t make it any easier. Is Dana burning too many bridges that he could possibly use in the future or is he just doing what the execs. at Zuffa tell him to? MMAFighting.com’s Friday Mailbag discussed a few of those issues.

Bobby Lashley, another Pro-wrestler gone MMA finds himself kind of in Limbo as the promotion he is currently signed with (Kentucky’s AFL), is in an unknown status. He’s bound to his contract but it seems that after the recent success this year of Brock Lesnar, other promotions are showing interest because of the big draw of the former pro-wrestling star. Until then, Lashley will have to ride out his contract. He recently spoke to TAGG Radio, a partner of MMA Junkie. It’s a great read and I think that Lashley could do well for himself in MMA. He big, he’s quick and he’s got good cardio. We’ll have to wait and see after a few fights.

After an extremely disappointing fight and an unprofessional turn of events for Paulo Filho this past WEC 36 with his bout with Chael Sonnen, the fighter was dropped from WEC. Though the WEC is dropping their middleweight division, Filho would have been a fighter considered for a move to the UFC next year. After his loss and not being able to make weight for his last fight it was bound to happen. Right now his management says that the priority for Paulo Filho is to get his life back in order and his mind focused.

Lastly, it’s been reported quite recently that Pat Miletich is getting back in to the ring next month. Miletich will face Tommy Denny at Adrenaline MMA’s second show in the Miletech Fighting System’s backyard of Moline Iowa. Read more on that at MMAWeekly.com.

Well that wraps things up here for the Month. Moving in to December we have a handful of great MMA fights coming up that you won’t want to miss.

All Image Credit: Newscom.com

Post from: EveryJoe

End Of Month MMA Wrap Up

WEC 37 starts at 8 pm with 4 fights to air so it should be over by the time The Ultimate Fighter comes on at 10 pm on Spike TV. This Torres Vs. Tapia fight should be a great fight. Also Brian Bowles will be fighting Will Ribeiro and Bwoles fights are always pretty good bouts.

ProElite has had their Promotional licenses reinstated by the California Stat Athletic Commission, so Jake Shields is not a free agent just yet. Like all the other EliteXC fighters, he’ll have to wait it out to see what happens in the near future.

If George St.Pierre beats B.J. Penn, he could be facing Anderson Silva next by moving up in a weight class. Of course this is just a rumored thing right now, but Dana White spoke about it at MMAWeekly.com. That would be a fight to see.

Image Source: Newscom.com

Post from: EveryJoe

End Of Week MMA Update

The final Lightweight fight aired last night on UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter with Team Noguiera’s John Polakowski facing Team Mir’s George Roop.

John Polakowski, while seeming like he has a bit of ADHD was the favored pick of this fight due to the fact that George Roop injured his hand pretty badly during practice when he got it caught in the fencing of the octagon. However during the fight he was throwing a lot of good left hands and feet and going for some take downs. Polakowski was trying to throw a lot of punches and landed a few good ones during the second round that made Roop a little wobbly. He wasn’t throwing any kicks though, afraid to be taken to the matt where it is painfully obvious that his skills are very limited. After two rounds it went to the judges with both fighters looking battered and beaten. The judges scored a unanimous decision for George Roop.

Back at the house some of the fighters were out in the pool and hot tub and a few of the other fighters in the house started throwing various pieces of food down at the fighters in the pool. One of the pieces of food being a porch chop, hit Junie Browning in the head and he almost went ballistic. Previews showed Junie flying off the handle again on next weeks episode with another sit down with Dana White and Junie Browning.

Dana White and the coaches got together and brought the fighters in to determine the match ups for the semifinals. Next week begins the semi-finals with the following fights set to take place:

Light Heavyweights

• Eliot Marshall vs Ryan Bader
• Vinny Magalhaes vs Krzysztof Soszynski

While I think it looks good for Ryan Bader, the match between Vinny and Krzytof should prove interesting seeing that Krzytof has some pretty good stand up and minimal Jiu Jitsu, while Vinny is just the opposite. I imaging that Krzytof will want to keep it standing.

Lightweights

• George Roop Vs. Philipe Nover
• Junie Browning Vs. Efrain Escudero

Roop Vs. Novar should be a good match but I don’t think Roop’s ground game is as good as Nover’s. The Browning vs. Escudero match is going to be more of a grudge match as we saw some drama between them in the beginning of the season. Hopefully Junie has been paying attention to his weight and that won’t be an issue again.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Ultimate Fighter 8.10 Recap