Rampage on the Rampage

Apparently Quinton "Rampage" Jackson went on a second-rate rampage outside the cage, in his "lifted" Ford F-250 truck, emblazoned with his photo:

Rampage was on the 55 Freeway in the O.C., hit two cars and got off the freeway. The chase was on.

Rampage then began driving on the center divider. But it gets worse. According to the police report, Jackson then drove on the sidewalk, "causing pedestrians to flee for their lives." He started driving the wrong way on a crowded street, colliding with yet another car in an intersection. As he continued on, running several red lights, his tire disintegrated and he began driving on the rim.

Rampage eventually got to the exclusive Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, where he again drove on the sidewalk, "causing pedestrians to flee in terror."

Eventually, his car came to a stop and he was taken into custody at gunpoint. Cops took him to the Orange County Jail, but they determined he was "medically unfit" to be booked. Cops won't say if he was high.

Rampage is currently in an O.C. hospital.

Quinton, Quinton, Quinton...

Pro Boxer's Punch Carries Heavy Weight

Unsurprisingly a pro boxer's punch carries a heavy weight — just how heavy is pretty surprising though:

Researchers at the University of Manchester in England were curious about just how much force a top boxer can generate with a punch. So they enlisted local boxer Ricky Hatton, an undefeated 28 year old light welterweight and welterweight world champ. And they had him hit a 30 kilogram punching bag with sensors attached.

The results should make any spectators who figure they could last a while in the ring with a pro think again. Because Ricky Hatton, who’s nickname is The Hitman, generated a force of about 400 kilograms. An average person with no boxing training can generate only about one tenth that much force with a punch.

Slow motion video found that Hatton could typically generate punch speeds of 25 miles per hour, with one blow reaching 32 mph. The best punch speed that one of the researchers could achieve was about 15 miles per hour.

I guess there's the question of whether a researcher is in fact average in punching power, or much, much weaker. Anyway, a factor of 10 is a big factor.

By the way, welterweight is between light and medium — just 152 lbs — so Hatton is not a big guy.

And, of course, 400 kilograms is not a measure of force — but we know what they mean.

UFC 86 fighter paydays and salaries

I found the UFC 86 fighter paydays and salaries interesting:

Forrest Griffin — $250,000 ($100,000 to show, $150,000 to win)
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson — $225,000
Griffin defeated Jackson via unanimous decision

Patrick Cote — $32,000 ($16,000 to show, $16,000 to win)
Ricardo Almeida — $23,000
Cote defeated Almeida via split decision

Joe Stevenson — $60,000 ($30,000 to show, $30,000 to win)
Gleison Tibau — $11,000
Stevenson defeated Tibau via submission (guillotine choke) in round two

Josh Koscheck — $70,000 ($35,000 to show, $35,000 to win)
Chris Lytle — $14,000
Koscheck defeated Lytle via unanimous decision

Melvin Guillard — $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Dennis Siver — $7,000
Guillard defeated Siver via technical knockout (strikes) in round one

Tyson Griffin — $40,000 ($20,000 to show, $20,000 to win)
Marcus Aurelio — $40,000
Griffin defeated Aurelio via unanimous decision

Cole Miller — $20,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 to win)
Jorge Gurgel — $10,000
Miller defeated Gurgel via submission (triangle choke) in round three

Justin Buchholz — $8,000 ($4,000 to show, $4,000 to win)
Corey Hill — $8,000
Buchholz defeated Hill via submission (rear naked choke) in round two

Gabriel Gonzaga — $100,000 ($50,000 to show, $50,000 to win)
Justin McCully — $5,000
Gonzaga defeated McCully via submission (kimura) in round one

Those numbers don't include bonuses:

Fight of the Night: Forrest Griffin vs. Rampage Jackson
Submission of the Night: Cole Miller
Knockout of the Night: Melvin Guillard

Each fighter received $60,000 for their efforts in addition to their respective base salaries.

BrandWeek on TapouT

I've been astonished over the past few years by just how mainstream MMA has become. I can remember seeing the TapouT crew in their buffoonish costumes years ago, at small King of the Cage fighting events on Indian reservations in California. They seemed like a joke. They still do, but BrandWeek looks at their amazing growth:

Sales
2005: $3 million
2006: $12 million
2007: $22.5 million
2008: $100 million (projected)
2009: $225 million (projected)

Oh, and they have negligible competition.

Like I said, I can remember the early days:

By 1997, the pair had quit their jobs to start TapouT, the first such apparel company for the MMA world. A Web-only business, its sales grew from a meager $29,000 to $3 million by 2005. In those days, before the sport had really taken off, the brand made a name for itself by sponsoring athletes with amazing ease. Caldwell remembers being able to outfit some early fighters in head-to-toe TapouT looks for a mere $500. But as the sport grew, so did TapouT, and it was time for the next phase.

Then they brought in marketer Marc Kreiner and got funding from PemGroup.

They now have an almost unwatchable reality show, which, of course, serves as one long commercial for their brand. It's not unwatchable to everybody though; 100 fans have sent in photos of their TapouT tattoos.

(Hat tip to Robert Joyner at MMAPayout.)

Mikey Burnett Sues The Ultimate Fighter

Mikey Burnett Sues The Ultimate Fighter for — get this — failing to provide a safe environment:

Mikey Burnett, one of the original Lion's Den members, has filed suit in Clark County District Court against TufGuy Productions, Inc. d/b/a Ultimate Fighting Productions, Inc., the company that produces "The Ultimate Fighter" for Spike TV, as well as American International Group, Inc., an accident and health insurance company associated with the TV show.

According to the lawsuit filed on June 9, Burnett claims alleged negligence against the defendants, who "carelessly, recklessly and negligently failed to provide a safe environment for the Ultimate Fighter 4 participants."

Specifically, the 34-year-old Burnett states that he suffered a career-ending spinal injury during the show's tapings.

Burnett served as a competitor on the series' fourth season entitled "The Comeback," where UFC figures of old and not-so-old got a second chance at glory in the Octagon. Burnett's appearance on the show, which aired from August-November 2006, ended years of obscurity the Tulsa, Okla. fighter endured after personal struggles with alcohol abuse, injuries and a horrendous recluse spider bite.

An intriguing character from his 1998 bouts at UFC 16 and 18, Burnett flamed out on the show when he failed to reach the finals.

The punchline:

During his tenure inside the ‘TUF' house, the show aired Burnett running into a wall to stave off boredom.

Perhaps he needs a home with rubber walls.

A Novice's Guide to Watching Sumo

Yukari Iwatani Kane provides A Novice's Guide to Watching Sumo — in the Wall Street Journal. That's what initially got my eye.

I haven't watched sumo in a while — since the mid-1990s really:

Thanks to the 1990s-era popularity of two talented young wrestlers, the brothers Takanohana and Wakanohana — and fascinating scandals involving their family — the sport has become more popular with mainstream Japanese, especially among women. And a number of strong foreign athletes, primarily from Mongolia and the Pacific Islands, have made competitions more interesting and added global appeal.

In that era, many of the big stars — pun fully intended — were from Hawaii, and since then many Mongolian wrestlers have entered the sport. I had no idea though that one of the most popular wrestlers was European:

Even sumo novices will know they're in the presence of someone special when a star like Kotooshu, a towering, handsome Bulgarian, enters the ring.

Foreigners increasingly make up the top sumo ranks, but Kotooshu, a former Greco-Roman wrestler and the first European to win the Emperor's Cup, is particularly beloved among fans for his dark and handsome looks. He's often called the David Beckham of sumo.

The second-to-last bout during our visit starred Hakuho, a Mongolian who was the fourth non-Japanese to be promoted to the top rank of yokozuna last year. After clinching the match by throwing his opponent to the ground, Hakuho extended his arm to help him up. The audience approved: we heard women around us say, "Yasashii (he's so kind)!" as they sighed in admiration.

In the final bout of the day, we watched Asashoryu, the bad boy of the sumo world and the first Mongolian to become yokozuna, take on Ama, another Mongolian wrestler.

A Mixed Martial Arts Superstar

Nancy Mullane, reporting for NPR from San Francisco, interviews "Mixed Martial Arts Superstar" Jake Shields.

There's something vaguely amusing about that.

The incentives for violence in hockey

Tyler Cowen looks at the incentives for violence in hockey, discussed in a recent paper:

The level of violence in the National Hockey League (NHL) reached its highest point in 1987 and has reduced somewhat since then, although to levels much larger than before the first team expansions in 1967. Using publicly available information from several databases 1996–2007, the incentives for violence in North American ice hockey are analyzed. We examine the role of penalty minutes and more specifically, fighting, during the regular season in determining wages for professional hockey players and team-level success indicators. There are substantial returns paid not only to goal scoring skills but also to fighting ability, helping teams move higher in the playoffs and showing up as positive wage premia for otherwise observed low-skill wing players. These estimated per-fight premia, depending on fight success ($10,000 to $18,000), are even higher than those for an additional point made. By introducing a “fight fine” of twice the maximum potential gain ($36,000) and adding this amount to salaries paid for the team salary cap (fines would be 6.7% of the team salary cap or the average wage of 2 players), then all involved would have either little or no incentives to allow fighting to continue.

One commenter made some important points:

But they don't want to get rid of fights, and not just because of what the first poster said about nobody actually getting hurt in hockey fights (which is very true), and not because the league thinks that fighting brings in fans (which may or may not be true). It's because a lot of people believe that hockey fights are much safer than the alternative, which is an increased number of other, more dangerous penalties, like slew-footing ("accidentally" knocking another player down by sweeping their feet out from under them from behind, which at best ends in the player landing heavily flat on their back and at worst ends with them landing heavily on the back of their neck or head). I've been told that there's little to no fighting in European hockey because of official crackdowns, but that there are a whole lot more penalties like that. I don't know if this is true (I don't watch much European hockey), but it's another thing that I'd like to see an actual study on before the NHL tries to get rid of fighting.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson on Jimmy Kimmel Live

I must admit that I enjoyed Quinton "Rampage" Jackson on Jimmy Kimmel Live:



Quinton's just a fun character. Kimbo might make a better B.A. Baracus though.

Mixed martial arts show with Kimbo Slice scores big in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Times reports that the recent mixed martial arts show with Kimbo Slice scored big in Los Angeles:

The first mixed martial arts event shown in prime time on a major network was a big hit for KCBS-TV Channel 2.

The Saturday night tape-delayed Elite Extreme Combat event from Newark, N.J., came in with a local overnight rating of 4.7 and a 9 share. The rating peaked at 7.2 the final 15 minutes.

By comparison, a Stanley Cup final hockey game shown earlier in the evening on KNBC-TV Channel 4 averaged just a 1.3 local rating and a 3 share.

The MMA national overnight rating, which is an average for the nation's 54 largest markets, was a 2.7 with a 5 share.

The main event for the five-card night featured Kimbo Slice, a former street brawler from Miami whose real name is Kevin Ferguson, against James "The Colossus" Thompson of England. Slice won by technical knockout. The fight was stopped 38 seconds into the third round with a dazed Thompson bleeding from the ear after taking a few explosive punches to the head.

Jared Shaw, vice president of fighter relations for EliteXC, said he was extremely pleased with the overnight viewership numbers in L.A. Three other fights are scheduled to be shown on CBS later this year.

Yes, MMA is going mainstream.

What The F**k Is Dana White Fighting For?

What The F**k Is Dana White Fighting For? I'm not sure Erik Hedegaard, writing in Rolling Stone, answers the question, but I still find mainstream-media coverage of mixed martial arts interesting:

The way things are going, Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, may soon be hailed as the greatest sports promoter ever, of all time, bigger even than boxing's Don King, bigger even than pro wrestling's Vince McMahon.

He's taken mixed martial arts, a sport that was essentially moribund seven years ago — the bare-knuckle, anything-goes, kick-'em-in-the-kernels fights were outlawed in 36 states — and turned it into a moneymaking, crowd-frazzling sensation, a new heavyweight pay-per-view box-office champ. He accomplished this by using various business-savvy stratagems and dodges, but in a sense the inside mechanics are beside the point. How he did it really is by the force of his own multifaceted personality. At 38, he is profane, charming, ambitious, cunning, controlling, a whole lot of fun to hang around with, open like a book, closed like a fist. In fighters and fans, he inspires loyalty and fear, admiration and disgust. He has a shaved head. He wears skintight T-shirts. He looks badass, he talks badass, he is badass. In all respects, he has been the exact right guy to bring the UFC back from the dead.

IFL Featherweight Champion Wagnney Fabiano

Wagnney Fabiano is a phenomenal grappler who has used his jiu-jitsu skills to defeat every single one of his International Fight League opponents by submission — in the first round. (OK, with one exception: John Gunderson lasted until the second round.)

I just watched his fight with L.C. Davis in the IFL Grand Prix Finals, and it's hard to see why Davis is a finalist; Fabiano is that good:



(It takes a while for some of these fights to make it to TV. Fabiano beat Davis in December, and he has fought since then. I won't spoil anything for you though.)

Legally blind man teaches alleged intruder a lesson

Legally blind man teaches alleged intruder a lesson:

A legally blind man beat up an intruder and held him at knifepoint until police arrived at the man's eastside home, authorities said. Allan Kieta, 49, told police he was at home Monday morning when his small dog began barking and he encountered the man.

"I opened the door and just ran into him. I had him pinned in the laundry room and just kept pummeling," said Kieta, a former wrestler in high school.

He said he grabbed the intruder by the belt and dragged him into the kitchen, where he put a knife at the man's throat and tried to dial 911.

"Being visually impaired, I couldn't get the buttons because I was using my left hand," he said. "It took me about 20 tries."

FightMetric Total Performance Rating

The folks at FightMetric have decided to compile stats from mixed martial arts fights and to compute a Total Performance Rating from those stats.

For an idea of the stats they decided to use, take a look at their scoresheet:



From striking distance they score both jabs and power shots to the head, just power shots to the body, and neither to the legs. (All strikes, whether punches, kicks, knees, or elbows are divided into jabs and power shots.)

From the clinch they score just power shots to the head or body — and various takedowns.

From the ground they score just power shots to the head — and various submissions and grappling transitions.

What's peculiar, from my perspective, is that they decided what was important simply by deciding what was important. They thought about it, and they surveyed some fans, but didn't run any kind of analysis to determine what stats lead to a win — or they haven't explained it if they did. The closest they came was normalizing the coefficients so that the average winner’s score would be 55 and the average loser’s score 45.



(Hat tip to John.)

There's no room for football in Westbrook's heart

There's no room for football in Westbrook's heart. He has moved on from the NFL to jiu-jitsu:

There's a weightlifting session at a health club in the morning. At night, he walks into that back room and becomes exactly what he and the Redskins had hoped for when he was drafted with the No. 4 overall selection out of Colorado. Here at 7:30 on most nights, Westbrook is the best athlete around, excelling with every movement, while totally at peace.

In a room that looks like a basketball court without baskets, and a floor covered with blue mats, the guy who came up short of forecasts to be the best wide receiver ever, is well on his way to elite status in Brazilian jujitsu.

The sport is similar to wrestling in that it's a ground-based fight, but is far more technical. Westbrook dabbled in martial arts during his football days, but didn't really get into Brazilian jujitsu until his career ended in 2002. He's won national and Pan-Am championships as a blue and purple belt and he hopes to soon become a brown belt. If all goes according to plan, he'll be a black belt — the highest level in the sport — within a couple years. Generally, most black belts take eight to 10 years of intense training to reach that level.

Westbrook dabbled briefly in Ultimate Fighting, defeating former NFL player Jarrod Bunch in his only bout.

Imagine rolling with a guy with these physical attributes:

Westbrook walked away from the game after one last dismal season with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2002.

"I could still jump over 40 inches, still run the 40 in about 4.3 and still bench press 400 pounds,'' Westbrook said. "I still had my physical skills. But mentally — mentally — the game made me toast.''

Ultimate Cash Machines

The latest issue of Forbes presents the owners of the UFC as the Ultimate Cash Machines:

With his older brother, Frank Fertitta III, 46, and UFC President Dana White, 39, Lorenzo Fertitta has transformed UFC from a business once labeled by Senator John McCain as "human cockfighting" into a lucrative sports empire that competitors like Mark Cuban are now hoping to horn in on.

It's the Ultimate Money Machine. That night before the Super Bowl 10,700 fans packed the arena, paying an average of $340 for a ticket to witness nine mixed martial arts fights. Another 500,000 fans paid $45 ($55 for high definition) to watch five of the nine fights at home. The total haul from the event: $25 million.

This year UFC is likely to generate $250 million, capturing perhaps 90% of mixed martial arts revenue. The majority of UFC revenues come from the monthly pay-per-view events. Additional cash is made from ticket sales to live fights and licensing fees from its Spike cable shows The Ultimate Fighter and UFC Fight Night . These shows in turn act as promotional tools to drive fans to pay-per-view events. More scratch comes from sales of DVDs and T shirts, as well as downloads from UFC's library of past bouts.

The Fertittas field pleas from private equity and media firms to sell UFC. Those offers, they assert, exceed $1 billion. Not a bad return on investment for something they paid a mere $2 million for in 2001. (Indeed, in 2002 FORBES wrote skeptically about the Fertittas' ability to turn their new purchase into anything worthwhile.) The price, if they could get it, would be rich in comparison with the $1.4 billion market value for publicly traded World Wrestling Entertainment, which has almost double the revenue. Both UFC and WWE racked up similar pay-per-view buys in 2007: UFC got 5.1 million buys for 11 fights while WWE got 5.2 million for 15 fights. Often UFC pay-per-view events draw as many male viewers ages 18 to 49 — some 3 million — as one of last year's biggest college football games, Michigan versus Ohio State. That number assumes six people are gathered around the TV to watch each pay-per-view purchase. UFC has broadcast events to 170 countries and territories and recently sold out live fights in Manchester, U.K. and Montreal.

The brothers each own 45% of UFC (White owns the rest), which is operated through their holding company Zuffa (Italian for "fight"), LLC. Add in personal assets and their stake in Station Casinos, which they took private with buyout maven Thomas Barrack for $9 billion in cash and assumed debt last year, and each Fertitta has a net worth of $1.3 billion, ranking each 380th on The Forbes 400.

Tim Credeur's 'The Ultimate Fighter 7' Journal

Jiu-jitsu black-belt Tim Credeur's 'The Ultimate Fighter 7' Journal has some amusing bits about the not-so-technical fight in episode 3:

"JT Money" followed the game plan to a T. He shot early and wrestled and really just out-hustled Dolce in the wrestling department. He had his back for most of the first round trying to finish with his patented one submission in his Submission Artistry repertoire known as the "Bicep" Choke. You must do lots of curl and have great power to get this one so it works well for Jesse obviously. He only went for the technique 60 times in his fight so it had to land eventually. From Dolce’s back, Jesse did some good damage going for the choke and pounding away. In the second round it was more of the same with Jesse getting the takedown and then working for that bicep choke again. Eventually Jesse sunk it in for the victory and submission.

Smoove Grappler

Genki Sudo is one smoove grappler. Here he is, lightly rolling with a Pancrase fighter — to Prince playing in the background:



One of my personal favorites is the video of Genki at Chris Brennan's submission tournament a few years back. I'm still kicking myself that I was out of tournament shape that weekend and didn't bother to go "just to watch":



The first guy he fights goes for a takedown, and Genki seems to deflect him effortlessly with his ki energy. That guy, Bao Quatch, regularly taught takedowns at Brennan's school, and he was a grappling machine — if "only" a blue-belt at the time.

Make sure to watch Genki jump over one guy's guard into a triangle from the top. Unreal.

If you don't want to watch him pick on poor li'l blue-belts, you can watch him fight against Royler Gracie — in an event that allows knees to the head on the ground:

Gorilla Monsoon versus Muhammad Ali

I knew that Ali worked a match with Antonio Inoki. I had no idea that Muhammad Ali wrestled Gorilla Monsoon:



Here's that Inoki match:

Pros vs. Joes Finale

One of my guilty pleasures is Pros vs. Joes, in which "ordinary Joes" compete against retired professional athletes. Actually, I often fast-forward through whole chunks of it — the basketball portions, in particular — but I enjoy the football portions, and I love the combat-sport portions.

And I've been waiting all season for the episode with Bob Sapp. In case you're not familiar, Bob Sapp is a ludicrously huge man — 6'5" and 375 lbs., lean — who used to play in the NFL before fighting in Japan.

The Joes were terrified. Imagine their surprise when they found out that he was blocking for Jamal Anderson too, before it even came to the kickboxing portion of the show.



One odd element of the show is that the Proes clearly are not giving it 100 percent; they're toying with the Joes. On some plays, Jamal Anderson slips a tackle, turns around, stops, waits for the Joe to chase after him, run backwards toward the end zone, then stops, drops his head, and knocks down his tackler, before stepping back into the end zone for a touchdown.

Other times, he gets caught.

Anyway, watching ordinary Joes, even really athletic Joes, try to stay in the ring with Bob Sapp is just plain scary.

A Viewer's Guide to Judo

The Wall Street Journal offers up A Viewer's Guide to Judo — which isn't particularly instructive:



The real news is simply that the Wall Street Journal is talking about judo.

An Instinctive Regulator

Virginia Postrel notes that McCain is An Instinctive Regulator:

McCain is an instinctive regulator who considers business a base pursuit. It doesn't help that the senator's personal connections with commerce are largely limited to a highly protected local industry (distributing beer) and outright corruption (the Charles Keating scandal). And he's every bit as moralistic as Hillary Clinton, our would-be national nanny. His first response to something he doesn't like — particularly something commercial he doesn't like — is to ban it. The most extreme, and effective, case of this instinct was his holy war against ultimate fighting, a peculiar cause for a boxing fan and one McCain took up when he was still in his "conservative" stage.

Back in 1998, Slate's David Plotz, recounted his run-in with the senator:

When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: "Don't people get killed all the time doing that?" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC — though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring.

But this does not impress boxing fans, who are the most vigorous opponents of extreme fighting. McCain sat ringside at a boxing match where a fighter was killed. When I asked him to explain the moral distinction between boxing and ultimate fighting, he exploded at me, "If you can't see the moral distinction, then we have nothing to talk about!" Then he cut our interview short and stormed out of his office.

Blue and white found equal in judo

Blue and white found equal in judo:

The color of a judoka's suit plays no part in the outcome of a match, British researchers say.

Seems pretty obvious, but earlier studies found that blue had an advantage:

Past studies had suggested that contestants in blue had an advantage because the color was more intimidating, or that the white competitor might be more visible, allowing an opponent to better anticipate his movements.

However, Dijkstra said those studies did not take into account that higher seeded — and therefore more skilled — competitors wore the blue uniforms. So it made sense that they would win more often, he said.

This seemingly minor point jumped out at me:

"We focused on judo but the finding may have wider implications for sports in general," said Peter Dijkstra, an behavioral biologist at the University of Glasgow, who led the study. "We show there is no color association for a winning bias."

Why? Because previous studies have shown that if you want to win in sports, you should wear red.

Kung Fu Panda

Jack Black as Kung Fu Panda? Yeah, I think I'm going to have to see that.

Pros vs. Joes

Last season, I made sure to catch the Pros vs. Joes segments where Randy Couture submitted the Joes and where Roy Jones pummeled them. As much fun as the football and basketball segments might be, it's the combat segments that feature the most fear and drama.

This season Kurt Angle talked an intimidating game, but he didn't punish the Joes with high-amplitude throws. Arturo Gatti, on the other hand, went ahead and knocked out a couple Joes:

Killing of glamour model-bodyguard stuns Moscow

Killing of glamour model-bodyguard stuns Moscow:

As a glamour model, 29-year-old Loginova often appeared on the covers of Russian magazines, scantily clad. She fronted advertisements for high-profile brands in Russia, like the German carmaker BMW.

But behind the glossy images, Loginova had another profession: She was an experienced bodyguard, trained in martial arts, commanding high prices to protect Russia's wealthy elite. One notable client was Russian boxer Kostya Tszyu.

Having a female bodyguard is more than just a status symbol in Russia. Industry insiders say women bodyguards are not recognizable and, thus, allowed to sit at tables with their clients during dinners and other events — unlike their male peers who are usually forced to wait in the lobby.
[...]
It seems that fearlessness may have gotten her killed. On a busy street in southeastern Moscow on Sunday night, police say they recovered her battered body after she tried to prevent her Porsche Cayenne from being stolen — clinging on to the high-end SUV as it sped away. The vehicle was later found abandoned.

"According to eyewitnesses, an intruder just threw her out of the car," explains Oleg Pavlov, a special police investigator in charge of the investigation.

"She grabbed the door handle, but when the car took off and picked up speed, she let go."

No one has been arrested in connection with the killing.

Russian media have been giving the killing prominent coverage, with witnesses expressing their shock that this kind of crime could happen.

But luxury car theft in Moscow is not uncommon, and Loginova herself was no stranger to it. In her last magazine interview, she described how she foiled another carjacking just four months ago as she parked her car outside a flashy Moscow fashion boutique.

"So while I was closing my car, a guy of 30 years old or slightly older jumped on me," Loginova said. "So I did a jujitsu move — I bent his hand that grabbed mine, and struck him in the face with my elbow. It was a total surprise for him.

"As he was leaning back covering his face, I pulled a pistol from my bag and aimed it at him. He obviously realized that was no joke," she said. "Then a car immediately pulled up nearby, something like a Honda, a dark car, and he jumped into it. And I still stood there with my pistol. I was actually spooked too."

That experience apparently emboldened Loginova to defend her car for a second time.

(Hat tip to Todd.)

Fight Science

The National Geographic Channel — "Nat Geo" to its friends — has been very good to me lately, first with Fight Club: No Limits and now with two new episodes of Fight Science.

The MMA episode was great, despite the laughable narration, written by someone who clearly does not "get" the sport. Two things really stood out to me. First, Bas Rutten really does punch twice as hard — well, almost twice as hard — as Randy Couture, a UFC champion — and kicks much harder than the Muay Thai "expert" they tested in a previous episode. Second, Couture's ground and pound strikes were four times as hard as his standing punches.

The Special Ops episode focused on environmental extremes. A Navy SEAL sat in an ice bath for an hour before he started showing negative effects from exposure. He was able to "compartmentalize" his blood flow to keep his internal organs and brain functioning — in fact, his core temperature went up when they put him in the ice water. When they put him through a tactical drill after that, he performed roughly as well as when he was fresh. Then they put an Israeli commando on a treadmill, in a plastic suit, with a fifty-pound vest on, under heat lamps. After they brought his core temperature up to 103-point-something, they put him through his own tactical drill, and he vastly outperformed his fresh run.

The next episode, Fighting Back, looks at self-defense techniques — which might explain the Krav Maga ad during the show.

Don't Get in a Street Fight in Bali

Listen to champion MMA fighter Urijah Faber tell his tale of trouble in Bali — and imagine what would happen to any of the rest of us:



(Skip two minutes in for the story.)

Fight Club: No Limits

Years ago — wow, maybe a dozen years ago now — I went to one of the Dog Brothers' Gatherings of the Pack, back when it was an informal meeting in a park near one of the Dog's homes. I simply had to see live stickfighting, especially since it was "no holds barred" — in the sense that grappling was allowed, and minimal pads were involved. It was an experience.

You'll note that I didn't jump in that day, and I didn't ramp up my Filipino Martial Arts training in order to jump in next time either. Once you've seen a guy get hit hard enough that his fencing mask gets stuck on, you have to take the whole thing seriously.

The other night, National Geographic had an excellent documentary on the Dog Brothers, Fight Club: No Limits, which largely — with the exception of an interviewed professor or two — seemed to "get" the ethos of the event:



The "elders" of the pack run the event by these magic words: No judges, no referees, no trophies. One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day. Our goal is that everyone leaves with the IQ with which they came. No suing no one for no reason for nothing no how no way!

One element has changed over the years: the knife fights now use a Shocknife to keep things "real" — and it does hurt, from what I've heard. Too bad it's $500...

Fight Quest

If you've been enjoying Human Weapon, might I recommend Discovery Channel's Fight Quest?

Some guys like to fight. The rest of us like to watch.

Welcome to Fight Quest, airing Fridays at 10 p.m. ET/PT starting Jan. 4. A blend of cultural immersion and good old-fashioned smackdown, the series follows seasoned mixed martial arts fighter Jimmy Smith and 25-year-old rookie Doug Anderson as they travel the globe, adding fight styles from Kali to kickboxing to their repertoire.

In each episode, Jimmy and Doug will explore a new location identified with a style of fighting, such as kung fu in Dengfeng, China, and boxing in Mexico City, Mexico. There, after first immersing themselves in the sounds, smells and tastes of the local scene, the two guys will separate to train with local masters of that method — sometimes an ancient art of combat, and other times a modern form of butt-kicking. After several days of intense instruction, Jimmy and Doug will each face off against a local in a no-holds-barred test of skill.

The Shovel and the Epee

In The Shovel and the Epee, Sam Sheridan looks at striking in MMA versus boxing:

First, the gloves: the 4 ounce gloves used in MMA cut very easily, and they give a lot more guys “a puncher’s chance.” Almost everyone is heavy-handed with those on, flash knock-downs happen all the time.

Just ask George St. Pierre—I doubt anyone had warned him about the devastatingly heavy-hands of Matt Serra before Serra upset St. Pierre by TKO last Saturday to win the UFC welterweight title. In boxing, a guy is a “puncher” or he’s not—but in MMA, almost everybody’s a “puncher.”

In boxing, defensive stylists like Winky Wright can catch punches on their gloves, but that won’t fly in MMA, not with the little gloves. Likewise James Toney’s defensive masterpieces, the shoulder roll and catching shots on the top of his head, won’t work.

Another friend, a boxer, had said that “boxers learn to roll with punches” which is true, and can mitigate a lot of the power when you get caught clean—but with the little gloves, I think rolling with punches is minimally effective. There’s not much to roll with.

The more important difference between MMA and boxing is range, and the biggest modifier to range is the take-down. The biggest, most decisive single attack in MMA, the take-down and defending it are HUGELY important. You can’t stand in the pocket and shoulder-roll and bob and weave, because your opponent will drop (“change levels”) and take you down; and he’ll end up on top, a hugely advantageous position.

To avoid being taken down, you have to keep your distance and be ready to “sprawl” out, to keep your legs away from an opponent’s grasping hands. Beautiful, flowing, fluid combination punching leaves you in range to be taken down.

You can’t take a wide stance, or plant your feet without increasing the danger of your legs getting snatched out from under you. In fact, without boxing’s strict rules about the clinch, combination punching might never have evolved to the point it is at today.

Of course, kicking and kneeing also changes the range, and punching in MMA becomes a little more like jousting—you’ve got to come in with straight punches and get out. Chuck Liddell’s striking is pretty much unquestionably the best in MMA at 205 pounds, and boxers look at him and think he looks terrible. Floyd Mayweather recently commented during a media teleconference that “UFC ain't nothing but a f_king fad. Anybody can go out there and street fight. If they think (UFC light heavyweight champion) Chuck Liddell is so good, we should take Chuck Liddell and take a good heavyweight under Mayweather promotions….” And he even offered a million dollars of his own money. All the diatribe does is reveal Mayweather’s ignorance, because Chuck is emphatically not boxing.

Chinese police dog may teach pandas to fight

Your Chinese panda style is no match for my German dog-fu! Chinese police dog may teach pandas to fight:

Scientists in China may use a police dog to teach pandas to fight after the first artificially bred panda released into the wild was apparently killed after a battle with other animals, local media reported on Saturday.

That sounds hardcore, until you get to this part:

The pandas would learn how to protect themselves by observing the dog, increasing their chances of survival when they were eventually released into the mountainous wilds of the far western province of Sichuan.

You can't learn to fight just by watching...

Bill Duff from Human Weapon KO'd by Taekwondo Black Belt

It looks like Bill Duff from Human Weapon failed to use his superior size and strength against a Korean Taekwondo black-belt:

Banning samurai swords

The British government is banning samurai swords:

The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.

However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

"In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons," Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.

"We recognize it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."

The Association of Chief Police Officers said the swords were not a common weapon but they had been used in a number of significant incidents.

In 2000, Robert Ashman murdered a Liberal Democrat councilor at the offices of Cheltenham MP Nigel Jones, who was also seriously hurt in the attack.

A year earlier, Eden Strang seriously wounded 11 people when he went on the rampage with a samurai sword at a Roman Catholic Church near his home in Thornton Heath, south London.

I'm pretty sure attacking people with a sword was already illegal.

FightMetric Analysis of Huerta-Guida at TUF 6 Finales

The sport of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is maturing, as this thorough FightMetric Analysis of Huerta-Guida at the TUF 6 Finales demonstrates.

In the first two rounds, Guida dominated, taking the fight to the ground almost at will and pounding away from his superior position:

"Though he is often characterized as a wild striker, Guida actually landed more than half of his strikes, connecting on 55% of strikes on the feet."

"Able to take Huerta down almost at will, Guida pounded on Huerta with rights and lefts from the guard and with powerful knees to the body from side control."

"The first thing that stands out is that Guida succeeded on all of his takedown attempts, including one slam. This is particularly impressive given that the five non-slam takedowns all came on shots from the outside, which have a historically lower success rate than clinch takedowns."

The Monster Hunter's Handbook

The Monster Hunter's Handbook presents itself as the compiled wisdom of the Heraclean Club, a renowned league of monster hunters.

It is divided into two sections, one on legendary monsters to hunt, and another on legendary weapons with which to hunt them.

I enjoyed the terms the author apparently coined for these two sections.

You may have heard of cryptozoology, the study of legendary creatures, like Big Foot and Nessie.

Thus, monster hunting is aggressive cryptozoology.

Unless you're a war nerd, like me, you probably have not heard of hoplology though, the study of weapons and their use. (Hoplon was the ancient Greek term for shield, and hoplite the term for an armored warrior.)

Naturally, the study of legendary weapons, like Excalibur and the Spear of Longinus, is cryptohoplology.

(The image is from Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and His Knights.)

Couture stuns MMA world with retirement

Couture stuns MMA world with retirement:

With little interest at age 44 of fighting anyone other than the man regarded as the best mixed martial artist in the world, UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture announced his retirement Thursday.

Couture, a five-time champion and UFC Hall of Famer, had hoped to land a bout with Fedor Emelianenko, the top-rated fighter in the Yahoo! Sports MMA poll of the world's best fighters.

But when reports surfaced Wednesday that Emelianenko had spurned the UFC to sign with the Russian-based M-1 Mix Fight organization, Couture opted to retire. The story was broken by Brian Knapp of The Fight Network, which has a business relationship with Couture.

"I'm tired of swimming upstream at this stage with the management of the UFC," Couture told Knapp. "It only makes sense at this point in my career to fight Fedor Emelianenko, and since he’s now signed with another organization, I feel like it's time to resign and focus on my other endeavors."

Now, Dana White's reaction could determine MMA's future:

White blamed what's becoming his personal whipping boy – MMA web sites and forums – for spreading phony rumors about fighter pay. Couture, who is in South Africa filming a movie and couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, released a statement in which he said he was retiring because the UFC didn't sign Fedor Emelianenko and no other fight mattered to him.

He also said he was upset with UFC management for what he believed was low pay. He made that point in a breakfast meeting last month with White and UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta.

"He felt he was not getting paid as much as Mirko Cro Cop, as much as this guy and as much as that guy," White said. "We told him he was our second-highest paid fighter, but he didn't believe us. Chuck's the only guy who makes more, but he kept hearing all these rumors and he wouldn't believe us."

White then launched into a tirade against what he called "the rumor mongerers on the Internet," whom he said are, "the lowest of the low."

He said fighters read those sites and believe them to be true, causing friction at the negotiating table.

"This business is like a beauty salon," he said. "These guys are all the toughest guys in the world, but they're like (expletives) in a beauty salon. They pass along rumors and gossip, which has no basis in reality and they believe all the (rumors) they hear. The Internet is very powerful and one of the best promotional tools we have, but it's a crazy place.

"They hear these rumors and they believe them and then they get insulted like (expletives) after we try to talk reality with them. They'll say, 'Well, this guy is getting this much,' but when I ask where they heard it, it's never a contract, it's always, 'I read it on the Internet.' It's crazy."

Of course, to me, the real story is still that MMA [mixed martial arts] is getting MSM [mainstream media] coverage.

Addendum: On that note, ESPN has an interview with Randy, who's in South Africa, filming on location, right now.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson on Sports Science

I was looking forward to watching Sports Science, and I would have been even more excited had known it would involve measuring Quinton "Rampage" Jackson's punching power. Judging from this segment of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson on Sports Science though, the show is about entertainment far more than science:

Last One Standing

I've been enjoying The Ultimate Fighter and Human Weapon, but now I've added Last One Standing to the list:

In the thrilling new Discovery Channel series Last One Standing, six athletes – three American and three British – are immersed in the most remote tribes in the world, where they live alongside and train with indigenous tribespeople as they prepare to represent their host tribe in raw and intense competition. From death-defying Zulu stick fighting in South Africa to an arduous foot race in the Mexican mountains — wearing only handmade sandals — these men push their physical and mental limits to see who will be the last warrior standing.

Cuban sees bright future for MMA

In case there was any doubt that the UFC had gone mainstream — Cuban sees bright future for MMA:

Now the 49-year-old billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks is ready to step full force into mixed martial arts -- both as a promoter of big-budget events and the driving influence behind a fledgling television network he intends to make the premiere destination for MMA-related programming.

Dominated by the wildly popular Ultimate Fighting Championship, which, according to SpikeTV, managed to attract more young men this past Saturday to the tape-delayed broadcast from London, England, than any college football game or NASCAR race could the same day, it's clear the combat sport has successfully grappled its way into living rooms across America.

"I think the UFC is a unique property that has a unique approach," Cuban told Sherdog.com during an e-mail interview. "I think Dana White and the Fertittas have done a remarkable job. [But] their model can only support a finite number of athletes, which leaves the door open for us to coexist.

"We certainly won't be a minor league feeder for them. But I think we would compete minimally for top-end free agents only because UFC locks them up to exclusive deals. I think some fighters would prefer our open approach."

The initial plan, as Cuban described it, was to pool quality regional MMA organizations such as Las Vegas-based Steele Cage Promotions, which in turn would promote often enough to provide regular programming for HDNet's "Friday Fight Night" series.

The Roman Arena

Archaeologist Shelby Brown writes about The Roman Arena:

Gladiatorial duels provided the crowd with a direct opportunity to participate in life-and-death decisions. A gladiator who knew he was about to lose his duel would ask the munerarius to pass judgment on him and grant him missio — allow him to be "sent away" (missus) alive. A fighter who was still standing would raise his finger in the air, while one who was down would raise his arm or make some other gesture to signal defeat. A munerarius was expected to turn the matter over to the crowd, which expressed its verdict by yelling or by making the famous gesture generally assumed to be "thumbs down." The art depicting gladiatorial combat illustrates that referees intervened between the fighters while the munerarius decided what to do. A gladiator who fought well enough to win his duels (or to lose but earn missio) was a good investment, since he knew how to please an audience and survived to fight another day. Under the system of missio, the time and money invested in training gladiators was not wasted after only one combat.

The audience demanded courage and respected a good combatant, whatever his social standing. An exhibition of skill or bravery was supposed to be uplifting (Pliny, Panegyric 33), and a gladiator who was not granted missio was expected to kneel with dignity to accept the death-blow. If he pleased the crowd and survived long enough, he could eventually win his freedom. Many gladiators whose chances for a decent life outside the arena were small, or who did not want to abandon excitement and fame, actually reenlisted when they had served their time. A parallel, although a less deadly one, can be drawn with boxing and now "ultimate fighting" to which retired fighters sometimes return. The numerous funerary monuments erected by family members for gladiators who died in the arena indicate that, in the long run, a voluntary gamble with one's life did not pay. Surviving even ten combats was rare (see Edwards 2007, page 51, listed in the bibliography).

How To Make Money With Mixed Martial Arts Gyms

How To Make Money With Mixed Martial Arts Gyms:

Have you ever heard about Karen Santaniello or her husband, James. James was in construction and Karen in real estate when they jumped into the growing MMA mix. In 2004, James' construction company was about to tear down the studio where he trained in jiujitsu. The Brazilian jiujitsu instructor Juliano Prado, 34, and Colin Oyama, a 34-year-old MMA instructor at a neighboring gym, proposed a partnership with the Santaniellos to open a new facility. Within three months, the four partners opened No Limits, a 15,000-square-foot MMA gym in Irvine, California.

By the end of 2006, No Limits had outgrown its facility, moved to a 26,000-square-foot building and taken on another partner, Ben Kane. Today, No Limits has roughly 1,000 members, projects 2007 sales of $1.8 million and holds claim to the largest MMA facility in North America.

"We don't just stick clients on a treadmill," says Karen. "They are being taught by instructors who are very capable." Capable, indeed--their instructors have trained MMA stars Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Tito Ortiz, as well as Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Rulon Gardner.

Even entrepreneurs without a direct MMA product or service are tapping the market. Todd Greene, founder of HeadBlade, a Culver City, California-based business that makes head-shaving razors and other head-care products, began advertising on UFC ring posts in 2004. At the time, his business was making less than $1 million. "I knew this was going to be a mainstream sport," says Greene, 40. Today, HeadBlade continues to advertise with the UFC and other MMA organizations and has seen revenue spike to almost $10 million.

Benji Radach's Injuries

I just watched an interview with IFL fighter Benji "Razor" Radach, and he has endured a ludicrous number of awful injuries. I found an online interview where he explains some of what he's gone through:

It’s been a crazy road. The first thing, it actually started right before my last fight with Chris Leben about three years ago, I was bit by a brown recluse spider, it got infected, and I had about a golf ball sized hole in my calf. I was just getting over that when I took the fight with Leben, we went into the third round and I got caught with a left hook and it broke my jaw.

After that not much longer I had healed up from my jaw, which took about six months, and I was training to fight JT Taylor up at the Tacoma Dome with Tito Ortiz, Ivan Salaverry and Dennis Hallman. I was training with Ivan and afterwards I had this huge pain running through one side of my trap and down my back, so I went in and found out I had to have surgery because it was a herniated disk. It had broken off, was floating around and mashed up a bunch of nerves. So I woke up in the morning and couldn’t even flex my chest muscle in my right pec or my right tricep. I had to wait two months to have surgery due to my job and during that time I had lost the muscles down to the bone. I got surgery and took another six months or more to get through that or more actually.

I started rolling again, joined the ATT a year later, started getting in good shape and tore my meniscus in my knee. I hadn’t had an ACL in that knee since I was about 10 years old, so I decided to get both done at the same time. I went to LA, had the surgery and got a humungous staff infection in the knee. It was bad; they almost cut my leg off. I had to fight the infection for three months, I had a ca