Andy’s Blog

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.

Another big event in the books and this one had its fair share of controversy.  Lots of debate on the winner of Machida vs. Shogun, but the fight definitely looked even to me.  In between the Hooters girls walking around with hot wings, my initial reaction was that Shogun was demonstrating more cage control but I’m not sure if it was enough to dethrone the champion.  Good arguments could be made for both guys, but I think Dana made the best decision in situations like these, which is an immediate rematch.  Hopefully now that they have both gotten a feeling for each other’s style, the next one will be a bit more explosive.

Lots of controversy about Anthony Johnson as well, as he missed weight.  I’ve trained with Anthony, you won’t meet a nicer guy and this guy trains hard.  I’m sure he feels bad for how it happened, but if anything, I think this is a call for more weight classes in our sport.  With 15 lbs. in between each weight class, it is a huge jump from one weight to the next and nobody wants to be that ‘tweener’, the guy stuck in the middle.  Just as amazing to me was Glesion Tibau, who looked really thick for a 155 lbs. guy.  How does that guy make weight?  Amazing.

Weight cutting is just a part of the sport and as with all sports known to mankind, people will try to push the envelope to get any edge possible.  No matter what rules you put in, people will try to push it.  The governing body for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, for example, uses a system where you weigh-in right before your matches.  I’m seeing more and more people with sauna suits on before their matches and while the intent of the rule is to level the playing field, again, people will try to find that edge.

If you have not seen this documentary by Christopher Bell, you should check it out.  I saw it for the first time recently and it has to do with the steroids debate in America and approaches the subject from a different perspective.  I thought it was very interesting and posed a good question about how American culture kind of fosters this image of being bigger and badder than everyone else.  Some sad stories mixed in there as well, such as Lyle Alzado and some ex-bodybuilder that is living out of his van hoping to capture some glory, despite being 50 years old.

Had a great training trip to Las Vegas but unfortunately suffered a injury while there and had to come back earlier than expected.  All I can say is they have intense guys at both Xtreme Couture and Wand Fight Team.  At Couture’s you get a lot of star power, with the one day I was there you had Randy walking around, Forrest Griffin training hard, Jay Heiron on the mats, etc.  At Wand’s, not as many name guys but they definitely work.

I’ll be posting some pics, especially of Wand’s nice ride…

Got into town this morning after a long drive from San Diego that started at 9pm, for whatever reason.  Got to the California/Nevada state line at about 2am and decided to take a nap in front of one of the casinos.  Started out the day by heading over to Mark “Hyeena” Beecher’s muay thai class and had a good time there.  Hyeena was one of the coaches for the “Ultimate Fighter’, season 7 I believe it was.  Then tried the MMA class at Xtreme Couture, which is at 4pm and is pretty much all the professional fighters doing live drills and sparring.  Went with a couple of good guys, including Jay Heiron, and that guy is a beast.  Finished the day by heading over to Wand Fight Team, which is Wanderlie Silva’s gym.  I met Wanderlie in China at the Art of War and he remembered me so he invited me to train while I was there.  Silva, despite having the nickname “Axe Murderer”, is one of the nicest guys you can meet, very friendly wth everybody.

Plan on going back for some more on Day 2…see if I can sneak over to Cobra Kai Jiu-Jitsu.

He’s back! MMA’s enigmatic wandering Ronin, BJJ black belt Andy Wang, returns to Carson’s Corner for an update on his ongoing warrior journey.

Andy recently went to war with ZST, DEEP and Bodog vetern Atsuhiro Tsuboi in Art of War’s “Ground Zero” event. Did Andy make good on his previous promise to use his grappling skills, or did he throw caution to the wind again and brawl it out on the feet? What does Andy think about the ongoing Mac Danzig “shirtgate” controversy? Tune in to find out!

In addition to fighting Andy Wang for the right to cross the bridge he guards, Carson also shares his thoughts on “The Simpsons”, the unfortunate passing of fighter Sakai Jockygym and rumors of a high-octane street fight involving Tra Telligman of the Lion’s Den.

To listen to the show, click here:
http://carsonscorner.podomatic.com

I read a really cool article recently about Travis “Ironman” Fulton, who has around 250 professional MMA fights, along with quite a few boxing and kickboxing matches.  The article can be found here: http://mmajunkie.com/news/16513/the-mma-iron-man-despite-200-career-wins-travis-fulton-still-hopes-to-reinvent-himself.mma

I actually had the privilege of being on the same card as Travis once while fighting in Arizona and he’s definitely a good guy with a sense of humor.  I remember the fight was on a Saturday and after the fight, while most of us was talking about heading home and taking some time off, he said he was heading to Mexico to fight on a Wednesday or Thursday!  Tough guy…

Here’s a picture from the 2009 No-Gi Pan Ams that was held in New York at the beginning of October.  It was the weekend after my fight in China but I did not want to pass up the opportunity to get on the mats with some good grapplers.  I came in 2nd, with Aldo Batista getting 1st and Daniel finishing 3rd.  Grappling is always my favorite part of the day and doing tournaments is a great way to see what’s new out there.