Andy’s Blog

I’ve been reading that Sengoku, one of the two top promotions left in Japan along with DREAM, might have had its last event.  Sad to see these organizations folding 1) as a fighter because the more top-quality promotions there are, the more opportunities for the athletes and 2) as a fan because Japan has a whole different mentality to matchmaking and production value and it’s pretty cool.  Case in point, the lightweight tournament that PRIDE put on a couple of years back was probably the best tournament ever and with the demise of the company, we probably won’t ever see anything like it again, which is a shame.

I’m beginning to think that MMA in America is a one league entity, much as the NFL rules football here.  There are many leagues, such as the Arena League, CFL, UFL, etc., but the name NFL has become synonymous with American football.   The UFC has done the same for MMA in the U.S., where I don’t really see a second organization being able to compete against the Feritittas, which is why its important that events flourish in other countries such as Japan.

I’ve been training with Diego Sanchez as he gets ready to fight BJ Penn next month for the UFC lightweight championship and it’s been intense.  Knowing how good BJ is and seeing how hard Diego trains, I’m expecting a great fight Dec. 12.  I had trained with Diego from time to time while going to Saulo Ribero’s University of Jiu-Jitsu and it’s always very competitive and very serious training with him.  I respect and admire the fact that Diego is trying to get the most out of himself and he trains with a lot of purpose.

I was pretty excited to see the latest incarnation of the CBS fights and thought it would be a pretty good card.  While Fedor took care of business like everyone expected, Brett Rogers did some damage and had his moments.  Rogers mentioned having a little bit of self-doubt during the fight and I’m sure if a re-match were to take place, he might be able to open even more eyes.  Fedor, meanwhile, knows how to deliver as a main event fighter and has that flair for the dramatic; hopefully the matchups we all want to see will happen in the near future…Couture, Lesnar, etc.

On the undercard, Jake Shields continues to impress with his relentless wrestling and grappling.  The way he moves from position to position is incredible and having trained with Mayhem myself a few times, I can say that his ability to control Mayhem was very impressive.

Gegard Moussasi?  This guy just shows you don’t have to walk around mean mugging people and banging your head on walls to be tough.  Cool as a cucumber and wins without getting a scratch on him, pretty bad ass.

I was very happy to see my long-time friend, jiu-jitsu partner and mentor Baret Yoshida win the IBJJF No-Gi World Championship on Sunday.  Baret is commonly considered one of the top-3 grapplers in his weight class thanks to some great ADCC showings but now he finally has that World Champion label attached to his name.  Having trained with him for over 10 years, I was happy to see Baret accomplish one of his goals and look forward to him adding more and more accolades.