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Last night’s ‘Battle for San Jose’ between Frank Shamrock and Cung Le can be simply described as one for the ages. Shamrock’s StrikeForce middleweight title was on the line as Cung Le, a San Shou expert from teh same city, was ready to prove he belonged in the same cage as the champ.

From the onset, Shamrock taunted Le with physcial gestures, mocking the challenger with a variety of charades implicating that he was going to be put to sleep. But Le stayed focused and delivered a variety of unorthodox kicks, punches and combinations that frustrated the champ.

It should be said that Shamrock was valiant in battle, even after sustaining an incredible amount of damage. With about 2:30 left in the third round, Le embarrassed Shamrock by catching his lazy front right kick and sweeping the champion up in the air while dumping him to the mat. Shamrock got up from the mat dejected, looked at his corner and quickly realized it was time to stop the mind games and to start fighting.

For the next minute, Shamrock waited for the perfect time to land a right hand, all the while taking punishment from Le. With 1:17 left in round three, Shamrock landed a stunning right hand that forced Le back to the cage. The next 30 seconds saw some of the most exciting stand-up exchanges seen in a cage in quite some time. Back and forth they went, with Shamrock winning the exchanges. Just when you thought Shamrock had turned the tide, cue Cung Le’s ’Beginning of the End’.

Shamrock, exhausted and with his hands down, left an incredible opening for Le to land a left high kick. The kick grazed Shamrock’s face, but provided what would end up being the winning strike of the match. It landed on the upper side of Shamrock’s right arm, breaking it in the process. With seven seconds left in the round, Le went in for the kill. Luckily for Shamrock, he was saved by the bell.

As he walked back to his corner, Shamrock fell to one knee and began explaining to his corner-men that something was wrong with his arm and he believed it was broken. The doctor made his way over to check on Shamrock, who eventually would not be able to answer the bell to begin the fourth round. At that moment, Cung Le became the new StrikeForce Middleweight Champion.

Cung Le is now an MMA star and thus, has a huge bulls eye on his back. Everyone will now want a piece of the humble champion and the inevitable references to Anderson Silva will begin shortly. Cung Le is a worthy champion but not on the calibr of an Anderson Silva yet. It will take time, but it should be noted that a match between both of these champions would be a symphony of offense; I would love to see it, but am not betting that it will happen anytime soon.

Here’s a look at the rest of the card:

*Cung Le wins the Strikeforce 185 lbs. championship
*Gilbert Melendez retains Strikeforce 155 lbs. championship

I hope and trust many of you are enjoying your day off today, hopefully spending some quality time with family and friends. If you are like me, you are either working or catching up on various chores around the house.

Lots of MMA news since I was on the air last night. Here are a few of the bigger stories:

Looks like many of us who were wondering what was wrong with Houston Alexanderduring his last bout vs Tiago Silva may have found our answer. The normally aggressive and explosive ’Nebraskan Assassin’ appeared tentative and completely off his gameplan during that loss to the Brazilian. News recently broke that the NJACB tried to prevent Houston Alexander from fighting Tiago Silva one hour before fight at UFC 78 (due to Alexander having only one kidney).

Alexander donating a kidney to one of his daughters awhile ago. How the New Jersey Athletic Control Board could bring this up right before the fight is beyond me. The Legal counsel for New Jersey Athletic Control Board disputes this accusation, but it does lend credence to why Houston Alexander just did not look mentally right during that bout.

UFC 83 is less than one month away and current Welterweight Champion Matt Serra will have to travel to Montreal to defend his title. Montreal is home to his opponent, Georges St.Pierre and it appears Matt Serra is Ready for the 22,000 Boos that will rain down upon him once he makes his way to the Octagon. This may appear to be a negative for Serra but it works both ways, as it will increase the pressure on St.Pierre to win this bout. Stay tuned for more on this incredible bout and event…I’ll have some big news for you soon.

CBS has announced May 31st as their inaugural date for their ‘Saturday Night Fights’ programming. During some NCAA games yesterday, they aired their CBS Saturday Night Fights Commercial (video). The card will feature Kimbo Slice in the main event with Elite XC Middleweight champion Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith as the co-main event. From a business perspective, it looks like EliteXC is creating matchups that should produce ratings.

With The Ultimate Fighter 7set to debut on April 2nd, the UFC is already recruiting for The Ultimate Fighter 8. If you are interested in trying out, here is the Ultimate Fighter application for season 8 (seeking) heavyweights and lightweights.

Strikeforce’s next event, scheduled for March 29th will showcase Frank Shamrock vs Cung Le in The Battle for San Jose. This will be a solid test for both fighters as Shamrock is not looking at fighting anyone in the upper echelon of the middleweight division but in Cung Le, he will face an exquisite striker with phenomenal takedown skills. For Le, its a definite step up in competition as he will have his hands full with the former UFC Champion, and the current Strikeforce middleweight title holder.

In closing, if you think Randy Couture and Dan Severn are too old to fight in MMA, then meet Skip Hall: The baddest grandfather on the planet.

Ciao for now,

Showdown Joe

As many of the hardcore, dedicated MMA supporters know, K1-Dreams held their inagural event yesterday. Dreams is regarded as the new ‘Pride FC’, the legendary Japanese organization where a multitude of MMA superstars reigned supreme. Names like Fedor, Nogueira, Cro Cop, Vanderlai, Rampage, Henderson, Gomi…the list was simply incredible.

During its Apex, Pride FC was the number one MMA organization on the planet; the UFC a distant second. Pride events jammed some of Japan’s biggest stadiums, ranging from 30,000 to over 65,000 fans to watch their New Year’s Eve shows. Now do the math for a second…the UFC gets ~14,000 in Vegas, ~18,000 in Columbus, ~19,000 in California. Their upcoming UFC 83 show in Montreal is a sellout of 22,000 seats, a new UFC record. Again, Pride would get from 30,000 + to any one of their regular events.

While it is my belief the UFC will one day pack stadiums of 40,000 plus, there is no denying the power the former Pride FC brand had in Japan, as well as the global MMA landscape. Today, that brand has been fused into the newly launched K1-Dream.

Prior to this amalgamation, K1 and Pride were fierce competitors, but after the UFC purchased Pride FC, there was a huge void in the Japanese MMA scene. Imagine removing the NHL from the hockey landscape in Canada; that is similar to what happened in Japan. What was left in Japan was various MMA leagues, all high quality, specifically K1, but it was just missing the lustre of the Pride FC gemstone.

When the UFC purchased Pride FC, they effectively released many of the Pride FC executives and production staff. These staff members were eventually picked up by Pride’s former competition, K1, which then created K1-Dreams. On Saturday, Dreams had their first event, packing in over 19,000 fans into the arena, while showcasing a bevy of international talent the UFC were unable to sign.

Many eyes were paying close attention to this card as it marked not only the return of Mirko Cro Cop, but also the mouth watering 16-man lightweight grand-prix tournament. You have heard me mention many of these lightweights before ( listed below) as potential candidates for the UFC to scoop up, sign, and send shockwaves into their existing lightweight division.

The UFC’s strongest division is their lightweight division, yet you can make an arguement that most of the participants in K1-Dreams’ lightweight tournament would bump many of the UFC’s Lightweight top ten, down the rankings. On paper, only two, maybe three of the UFC’s fighters would crack most analysts top ten world rankings, with Dream’s roster easily has six to seven in the Top Ten.

If you are an MMA fan, one with a respect for all fighters and their organizations, I implore you to take the time to watch not only the K1-Dreams Grand Prix tournament, but also do some research on many of the fighters. Believe me, if the barrier of promotional politics was not a factor, the lightweight division would have a main event (or at least a co-main event) on every MMA card the UFC / K1-Dreams would promote. The talent pool is as rich as it is deep.

To see what I mean, here are the fights from this weekends inagurual K1-Dreams event:

Lightweight Grand-Prix

Non-Tournament Bout

This is the first step of the MMA landscape changing in 2008, as K1-Dreams has already announced the participants in their upcoming Middleweight Grand Prix. If this contiues, Dreams will most likely have a light-heavyweight and heavyweight Grand Prix as well. Add this to the UFC’s promotional maching and you can see why the future of MMA is bright one in 2008.

Much is being made about Anderson Silva wanting to take on Roy Jones Jr. I see it as a very dangerous proposition for Silva, as entering the squared circle vs Jones is a risky one.

He will be entering the domain that Jones has pretty much dominated his whole career and one that Silva has not. This is not the Octagon or an MMA fight…it is a boxing match. Mind you, with any great risk, there is the gift of huge reward. The issue at hand though is whether the UFC would allow such a fight to happen.

This would be a huge PPV extravaganza and if Silva were to win, it would be huge. If not for his own net worth as fighter, but for the UFC and MMA in general. But, if he were too lose, it would put a severe kink into the mystique that is Mixed Martial Arts as the dominant combat sport. I’d much rather see a dual agreement where Silva and Jones fight once in the boxing ring and once in the Octagon (under MMA rules). Now that would be fun to see…

What’s not fun is this whole Fedor saga…

Once again, rumours are swirling that the big Russian Experiment could soon be a free agent. There are reports he may be exiting M1-Global in hopes of searching for greener pastures somewhere else. That’s the problem…green, as in the colour of money.

Fedor’s legacy is at a critical point right now…if his next fight is not against a serious heavyweight contender, many fans, analysts and critics are going to write him off. He will significantly drop down the heavyweight rankings as well as the pound for pound list.

Enough is enough…he has way too much talent to be caught in the buearocracy that is fight negotiations and ‘prize fighting’ for the sake of earning a hefty pay cheque.

Fedor should emulate guys like Chuck Liddell, Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson, Antonio Nogueira and GSP. There are many, many more that I could mention but the bottom line is that he needs to fight the best competition out there. That is, if Fedor really wants to go down in history as ’one of the best’.

That is the question he needs to ask himself.

The sport of Mixed Martial Arts has taken another big leap over the past week or so and is now undeniably on the cusp of true main stream appeal. If you take a look at each one of the stories I will showcase below, you will notice that the sport is slowly but surely cementing its foundation on not only North American Pop Culture, but also in the legitimate sporting world.

UFC Announces Deal with Anheuser Busch- Reaction to this deal has been 50/50 but if one does the math, this deal is huge for the UFC. Aligning itself with Anheuser Busch’s ‘BUD LIGHT’ brand is a massive sponsorship for Zuffa LLC. If you think the UFC is to MMA as the NFL is to Football, or Kleenex is to Tissues, this deal will further enhance that image for the UFC brand. Every time you walk into a beer store, you will see the UFC logo alongside Bud Light. Same goes for TV, Radio, Print…etc. One respected sports business analyst stated this: May 24: The Date The UFC Finally Becomes The Next Boxing

MMA gets 1st major TV network deal with CBS as Elite XC joins the cable giant and will showcase a variety of live MMA events. This is the organization that has Kimbo Slice on their roster,  as well as numerous other high calibre fighters. There are also recent rumours that have Tito Ortiz jumping ship and joining Elite XC to not only bolster their product, but also garner a piece of the ownership pie.

HBO Partnership: It also looks like the popular clothing line, Affliction and Golden Boy Promotions (Oscar De La Hoya’s Promotion company) may be teaming up, and entering the MMA world. This relationship may just put the sport of MMA onto HBO as well has their first big name in Matt Lindland, who recently left Bodog Fight.

Nike To Rampage - Just Do It: UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson is heading down to Los Angeles to film a Nike commercial entitled ‘Human Chain’, with other big names like Lebron James. This is just another big name, blue chip company that sees the reality and potential that MMA has.

While there are still many main stream outlets, broadcasters and people that just don’t get it, they can hide behind their vale of ignorance, keep making themselves sound as ignorant as they always do, while MMA simply continues to prove to the world that it is real, it is here to stay, and like it or not, it isn’t going anywhere.

As I sit here in a hotel room with the Sportsnet crew, we are all amazed at how big the UFC and MMA is amongst the general public. We headed over to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Fitness Expo across the street and were blown away by the amount of people surrounding the UFC booth.

 The Arnold’s bring in over 150,000 people through the doors with hundreds of retailers showcasing fitness products, martial arts gear and live event competition. But one thing stood out…people were flocking the UFC booth to get autographs from the fighters as well as buy up some UFC swag. We cannot even begin to imagine how much revenue and exposure the UFC got this weekend. It is truly unreal.

The other irony was how many Canadians were in attendance and were pulling me aside to talk MMA, UFC and to get pictures taken with yours truly. I can understand getting recognized in Toronto and various cities in Canada, but it ceases to amaze me how many times the Sportsnet staff and I get stopped whenever we are on the road.

While my producer and cameraman sit back and smile while fans pick my brain about various MMA topics, one thing that stuck out the most. These fans love MMA and want more. Many of them were very glad that The Fan 590 was carrying an MMA show and they are now ‘hooked’ to the station. They love the interviews and complimented the production of ‘The Showdown’ and am grateful for that. I did not know how far the stations reach went until today…WOW.

Tonight’s show is a few hours away and the buzz is electric. I thought I was excited about tonight’s main event but I have to tell you that the anticipation for this historical middleweight unification between Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson is breathtaking. Opinions are split down the middle and fans all have their unique point of view of who will win, and how they will win.

To say we are pacing in this room would be an understatement. We are staring at our watches and cannot wait to leave and get to the Nationwide Arena to watch the event. The undercard alone is worth a pay per view event so it will be a night of high quality bouts with some interesting story lines.

If Andrei Arlovski wins in convincing fashion, will the UFC resign their former heavyweight champion or will they let him walk to sign with one of their competitors? If Jon Fitch defeats Chris Wilson, is he next in line for a title shot vs the winner of St.Pierre/Serra that goes down next month in Montreal? If Henderson wins the title via decision (or unconvincingly), does Silva get an immediate rematch?

Here’s a look at the card:

Main Card

The clock is ticking…the start of this event cannot come soon enough.