THE SAVAGE SCIENCE presents the next event from one of the world’s up and coming MMA promotions–Costa Rica’s FITE NITE–on July 18th. NATIONAL DEFENSE starts at 7 PM Pacific/10 PM Eastern. The event will be available via free streaming video and we’ll have the live round by round coverage. We’ve followed FITE NITE ever since their debut (back when they were CR Fights) and their events never fail to entertain. They’re on the verge of becoming the next Strikeforce and you can catch all of the action free!!
Our friends at Demon Factory have just done a bio page for skateboarding legend Tony Alva. Alva was one of the real pioneers of the sport and known as a guy who’d never back down from a fight. Who knows? Had he come around a few years later he might have gotten into MMA…
And for the moron who wrote saying that a) Akiyama can’t fight without his gi and b) can’t strike here’s a clip of him against Denis Kang. Akiyama has fought a good deal without the gi, and here around the 5:00 mark he puts Kang to sleep with a slick combination. Everyone knows that Akiyama has sick, sick judo but what makes him doubly tough is how sharp his standup is:
Interview with the next UFC middleweight champion Yoshihiro Akiyama. Bonus footage of Akiyama training in a sparkly shirt. Do you know how big of a badass you have to be to train in a sparkly shirt? Chuck Norris uses his peripheral vision when he rolls up on Akiyama.
And we can never get enough of Akiyama’s ring entrances. Here’s one from DREAM 5 with some great commentary and vocals from fellow badass Bas Rutten. Highlight of Rutten’s commentary “Hold me, Kenny, Hold me”:
Kevin Iole at Yahoo Sports has a great article about how UFC heavyweight Antoni Hardonk broke up a robbery attempt in SoCal recently:
Antoni Hardonk, a heavyweight who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, had just finished a training session last month in Los Angeles near Los Angeles International Airport.
He was talking with his attorney, Nima Safapour, when three young men approached him. They asked if he had money so they could buy cigarettes.
“My feeling is I want to help someone if I can, so I pulled out my wallet,” Hardonk said.
But he had no change or small bills, so he told the men, whom he estimated to be between 18 and 20 years old, that he couldn’t help them.
That’s when one of them pulled out a homemade knife, which he said had about a two-inch blade, and demanded his wallet. Hardonk, who is 6 feet 4 and around 250 pounds, was surprised.
But not only is a he professional figher, he was a security guard and a bouncer in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He didn’t frighten or lose his composure.
“I said, ‘What? Are you crazy? I’m not giving you my wallet,’ ” Hardonk said.
At that stage, one of the other men said, “He’s serious. We’ll hurt you if you don’t.”
Hardonk continued to remain calm and told the men if they wanted his wallet, they’d have to come and get it. The men had second thoughts and left. At that point, Safapour suggested it would be wise if he were to drive Hardonk home instead of allowing him to walk by himself.
Only a very short distance away, Safapour eyed the same three men surrounding a woman. Safapour decided to call the police, because he knew the men were up to no good and the likelihood of something bad happening was increasing. The woman was saved when the men turned their attention on a man who was walking by himself. They went to him and more aggressively demanded his wallet, eventually wrestling with him and taking it.
Hardonk was watching from the car, about 80 to 100 feet away, when he saw them harassing the man. He jumped out of the car and began to run over to try to help the man, whom he did not know.
He wanted to make sure, though, that the man was being robbed and was shouting, “Is that your wallet?” as he was running toward the incident in progress.
Hardonk knocked over two of the men, but the third, who had the victim’s wallet, took off running. Hardonk followed. The man who had the wallet dropped it and the trio managed to jump over a fence and into a thicket of trees and get away.
Hopefully these subhumans get arrested, or better yet shot and killed soon. If they get picked up by the police we’ll try to round up some mug shots of the degenerate scumbags so we can heckle them. Here’s a few tips for would be street thugs:
–Don’t try to roll up on guys like Hardonk who go 6′4″ two fitty. It’s just not a good idea.
–For the love of all things holy, don’t pull a knife on a guy who fights in a cage for a living.
Anyway, mad respect to Hardonk for using his size and training to look after those who were more vulnerable to these lowlifes. He’s a good dude.
The only thing that could have made this story better is if it ended like this–the thugs leave Hardonk and say ‘hey, lets go try to rob that slightly chubby balding Russian guy. He won’t put up a fight like this big dude….’
Good article by Steve Cofield on the shoddy officiating at ‘Ultimate Chaos’:
Organizations like Strikeforce, WEC, Affliction and the UFC have to cringe a bit everytime some small MMA show is waged in states like Alabama and Mississippi. As the big boys push to cross the sanctioning finish line in New York, a disasterous result in one of these unregulated or loosely regulated states, could set back the effort a few years.
He concludes:
As much as MMA wants to be legal in all 50 states, the biggest promotions better make sure these states have their ducks in a row. Alabama had similar issues before the Tim Sylvia-Ray Mercer. After months of being on the schedule, a rules conflict arose the week for the fight and nearly cancelled the fight. It was changed from a boxing to MMA match two days before the fight card. That’s the picture of disorganization. All these incidents may seem minor at the time but it could lead to something awful setting the sport back years.
Don’t think we’ve ever seen Mir in this kind of shape. With all due respect to Brock Lesnar–who is a beast–lest we forget, Mir is 6′3″ 250 pounds himself. Not exactly a tiny guy. His striking has improved drastically, and he’s among the best submission fighters at any weight. A lot of us here at SAVSCI used to hate Mir, but he’s become one of our favorite fighters in the past year or two. He’s a great broadcaster on WEC events and we respect the hell out of how hard he’s worked to make the most of his second shot at the top of the division since his win over Lesnar at UFC 81.
Here’s how I personally see this going down–Brock puts Mir on his back again and gets submitted with a submission he’s never even seen before. Lesnar keeps improving as an MMA pro, but Mir is a walking encyclopedia of fighting. He fights off his back better than anyone in the sport, and if Brock makes just one mistake–and we’re thinking he will–Mir will pounce.
Got this thing from Affliction announcing that an actor from ‘Twilight’ would be making an appearance at their Melrose Avenue store. While we respect the fact that he’s scratching out a beefy check to a worthy charity, we take our job as an educational resource for junior high school teachers very seriously.
For that reason, we’ll introduce another Affliction wearer, SLAYER lead vocalist/bassist Tom Araya who has an important message for school kids everywhere followed by some instructional videos about how real vampires roll…
