HT: Around the Octagon:
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. [...]

Just posted–Lyman Hoyt takes a look at the horrible officiating at ‘Ultimate Chaos’ and the way late stoppage of Yvel/Rizzo:
ULTIMATE TRAVESTY: POOR OFFICIATING PLACES FIGHTERS AT RISK @ SAVSCI

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 would be the original ‘Tiger Mask’ and founder of Shooto Satoru Sayama for those of you scoring at home:

Not much to the story, but here’s a picture of Keiji Mutoh aka ‘The Great Muta’ paying his media respects to the late Mitsuharu Misawa:

The name alone would qualify Tokyo’s ‘Brainbuster Sports Bar’ as the best in the world. Their focus on fight sports makes it even better.

Brainbuster Sports Bar Tokyo (in Japanese)

Nikkan Sports is reporting that Japan’s judo gold medalist and newly minted Sengoku MMA fighter Satoshi Ishii will be training at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. He’s recovering well from surgery to repair a minor hernia and expect to resumes training hardcore soon. There has been some concern in the Japanese fight sport [...]

The essential Japanese MMA blog Nightmare of Battle is reporting that Strikeforce may have the inside track toward signing Takanori Gomi. Affliction’s Tom Atencio indicated in a postfight interview after ‘Ultimate Chaos’ that his organization was close to signing Gomi, but that may not be the case:
From Gomi’s latest interview in MMA magazine Kamipro [...]

Sengoku is doing their own version of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ called the ‘Sengoku Gold Rush Project’. The lightweight fights aired yesterday in Japan, and the always excellent Japan MMA blog Nightmare of Battle has them linked. Here’s part 1, and you can get the rest by visiting the link underneath:

SENGOKU GOLD RUSH PROJECT [...]

In 1981 you could make a very good case that Van Halen kicked more ass than any band on the planet. Their split with David Lee Roth in 1985 began a long inexorable decline for the band, but in this video they’re in their prime: