Tag Archives: Dana-White

Entertainment Wrap #17

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Summer keeps chugging along, with yet another batch of new releases. There are also big things going down in the world of MMA this weekend. Looks to be another great week, here’s a look…

THEATERS

New movies hitting theaters this week are: Bruno, I Love You Beth Cooper, and Blood: the Last Vampire.  Bruno is the latest from Sacha Baron Cohen, who is best known for Borat and Da Ali G Show.  Bruno follows the exploits of a gay fashionista from Austria who comes to the US. This is one of Cohen’s funnier characters and it seems ready for the transition to the big screen. Some of his humor falls flat, but when he is funny I find him to be flat out hilarious. While his brand of humor relies heavily on shock value, I feel that Cohen is perhaps the ballsiest comic in the game right now with all of the risks he takes.  I actually really want to check this movie out since it is almost guaranteed to shock you with some craziness you have never seen before and nobody pushes the envelope of controversy more than Cohen.

I Love You Beth Cooper is another high school comedy starring Hayden Panetierre (TV’s Heroes) and some other people. It looks like your typical HS flick.  While it doesn’t really promise anything new or original, it looks like it may be good for a few laughs and might be worth checking out.  Blood: the Last Vampire is a live action movie based on the popular anime of the same name. The story is about a young Vampire girl in post WWII Japan who is enlisted by a government agency to help them hunt down and destroy demons.  The movie has had some pretty bad reviews, mainly citing the poor special effects and the noticeable lack of blood from the comic.  I’m still interested in checking this out, but I have a feeling it won’t be until it hits video.

Then there is the movie whose name we dare not mention…but I will anyway- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which comes out later this coming week.  This flick looks to be the best Potter yet. I’ve never read an HP book before, but I’ve been following the movies since the start, and they’ve definitely grown on me with each film getting better and better (with the exception of the last one). The latest movie seems to have the darkest themes so far and I can’t wait to check it out.

DVD

New DVDs this week are Knowing, Push, and The Unborn. I’ve written reviews for all three of these, so for more in depth info definitely go check those out. I will take time to talk about the Unborn briefly. I was tricked in watching this because, like a few other people, I mistakenly thought that the lead character was played by Megan Fox of Transformers hotness. Don’t be fooled, she is NOT Megan Fox.  On the plus side, she is very hot also and the movie is pretty good.

GAMING

Nothing going on in the gaming world this week really worth noting. There is a re-release of Bio-Shock/ElderScrolls Oblivion in a bundle pack for the price of one game. This is a pretty solid deal for Bioshock alone. While the game doesnt have a multiplayer component, the SP is worth the price alone as it is one of the best games to come out in 2007. As far as Oblivion, I really know nothing about how good it is, since I dont really play serious RPGs like this. However, the game got a few Game of the Year nods, not to mention the fact that it comes with Bioshock in this bundle so it should be well worth trying out.

MMA

It seems like only yesterday I was a young teen watching a scrawny guy in a gi submit numerous opponents in a No Holds Barred fighting tournament. That man was Royce Gracie and that tournament was the Ultimate Fighting Championship I. At the time it seemed like a real life Bloodsport, but it was so amazing to watch Royce overcome such adversity using a lion’s heart and superior technique.  Back then they didn’t even wear gloves, there were no weight classes, hell you could even pull hair! Here we are a whopping 99 events later and MMA has most certainly evolved to a high level of sophistication. This brings us to the appropriately titled UFC 100: Making History, which features one of the best fight cards to date.

The card has a triple main event and you’d be hard pressed to pick the most exciting matchup out of the three, as they all have the potential to be dynamite. The rest of the card is no slouch either, but here I’ll just look at the big three and give my picks.

Middleweight fight: Michael “The Count” Bisping vs. Dan Henderson

Standup: Bisping’s strikes are crisp and he has excellent footwork to go with his boxing. He is very technical on his feet and he picks his shots well. Compared to Henderson, he is definitely the more refined and technical of the two.  Henderson has a crushing overhand right that he has used to change the tide of many of his fights, but he also has a ton of power in his left. Not to mention his titanium chin. He has stood and banged with some of the hardest hitters in the world, and to date he has never been knocked out and I highly doubt Bisping will be the first to do so. If he can trick Bisping into standing and exchanging with him, chances are Bisping will pepper him with a lot more shots, but all Hendo needs to do is withstand the barrage and connect flush one time and its lights out.  Edge: Henderson

Grappling: Bisping has gotten better at his ground and clinch game.  In previous fights, good wrestlers like Matt Hamill and Rashad Evans were able to give him trouble with their superior wrestling. Henderson’s wrestling pedigree speaks for itself. An Olympic wrestler, Henderson will definitely use this to his advantage to clinch and pin Bisping against the cage or hold him down on the ground and just grind the life out of him. While Bisping has improved in this aspect, he has never faced a wrestler of Hedo’s caliber in the octagon. Edge: Henderson

Cardio: Bisping is always well conditioned in all of his fights. He’s been in a few wars, but never showed signs of fatigue or slow down. Bisping is also a lot younger than Henderson, so that may work to his advantage cardio-wise. Henderson is usually incredible for the first couple of rounds, but tends to slow a bit as the fight goes on. This has hurt him in close fights like the Rampage fight or the time he fought Anderson Silva. He was doing good in both of those fights, but was noticably more and more slow towards the later rounds, not to mention the fact that the guy is getting old. If Bisping can withstand Hendo through the initial rounds, he may be able to take advantage of this later in the fight. Edge: Bisping

While it is pretty close to call, I’m going to go with Henderson. Both men are great fighters, but I think that Hendo’s wrestling and experience will prove too much for bisping.

Prediction: Henderson via TKO Round 3

Welterweight Title Fight: Georges “Rush” St. Pierre vs. Thiago “The Pitbull” Alves

Standup: Both of these guys are very well rounded strikers. St. Pierre likes to utilize his karate background throwing a lot of kicks, following up with punches. GSP has a bit of a reach advantage in this fight and can utilize that to stay outside of Alves’ range while landing shots of his own. Alves is just devastating on the feet. St.Pierre can definitely hurt you standing up, but Alves’ strikes just destroy people. His Muay Thai pedigree is evident in his devastating kicks and knees. Thiago has already stated that he is going to knock out GSP, so look for him to come out guns blazing. Edge: Alves

Grappling: GSP is the best wreslter in MMA. Everytime he has faced a bad ass wreslter (Hughes, Koscheck, Fitch, Trigg, etc) he has outwrestled them and imposed his will on them. Even BJ Penn, who’s takedown defense is from another planet, couldn’t stop GSP’s shots. Alves has improved tremendously in his grappling and ground game, as he has shown in his previous fights, most recently when he pinned Hughes to the mat like a tail on a donkey.  But his bread and butter is his ability to get back to his feet after being on the ground. Alves is definitely the stronger of the two fighters, but I don’t see him denying GSP’s wrestling…unless of course its with a killer knee to the face. Edge: GSP

Cardio: Both fighters are cardio machines. I see them as pretty evenly matched in this department and capable of going the full 5 rounds. I will give a slight edge to GSP as I feel he has the ability to just sap the energy out of his opponents. St. Pierre will most likely use his wrestling to pin Alves against the cage or the ground and just drain the energy out of him. Edge: GSP

This fight is a bit too close to call. GSP is the more rounded of the two, but Alves has devstating KO power and accuracy. I’m really hesitant to pick one, but I’m going to go with GSP. I love Alves’ style and his hunger, but I think St. Pierre is just too complete.

Prediction: GSP via submission Rd 3

Heavyweight Title Unification Fight: Brock Lesnar v. Frank Mir

Standup: Mir is definitely the more technical of the two fighters and his improvement was demonstrated in his most recent bout against Nogueira. It will take a hell of a lot for him to really hurt Lesnar, and the outcome of an exchange does not favor him at all. Lesnar only needs to connect once or twice to put Mir on his back or knock him out, so Mir would be smart to employ a stick and move strategy and try to point his way to a victory.   Lesnar is just too strong to be damaged by Mir, unless he connects with something serious. Edge: Lesnar

Grappling: The same problems Mir faces on the feet, he faces on the ground. While he has way more submissions than Lesnar, Lesnar is a lot stronger than Mir. Lesnar will look to use his NCAA wrestling champion pedigree to hold Mir down and just ground and pound the life out of him. As crafty as Mir is, his only real hope on the groud is to set Lesnar up for a submission. Since their last meeting, Lesnar will be very cautious against any submission attempts and will most likely just hold Mir in place and pound him out rather than risk getting submitted by trying to advance his position. Edge: Lesnar

Cardio:  Mir has had gas problems in the past, however he seems to have a new found focus on MMA and should show up game and ready for 5 rounds. Lesnar has never really been pushed to 5 full rounds, but his wrestling pedigree indicates that he is more than capable of going the distance. I have to give the slight edge to Lesnar, seeing that Mir will expend way more energy trying to control a beast of Lesnar’s stature. Edge: Lesnar

I’d like to see Mir somehow pull this one out, but all signs point to Lesnar taking this fight. Physically, Lesnar is a specimen the type of which has yet to be seen in the UFC.

Prediction: Lesnar via TKO Rd 3.

There you have it. My picks aren’t always the best, and this UFC looks to be one of the closest as far as match ups go (at least on paper). Regardless of who wins, the event looks to be a killer with three action packed events that promise to deliver.

That’s the week in entertainment and that’s a wrap.

The Ultimate Fighter 9 : Send Pierce HOME!

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Time to send this fool home. He’s a joke and makes the entire USA team look bad. It isn’t about the ipod incident or the fact that he discussed USA fighting strategies (which was f’ed up by the way) with the UK team either. Just from watching the past few shows you can see that the guy doesn’t want to be in the house, doesn’t appreciate the opportunity, doesn’t care for his teammates, and does not want to fight. All the negative energy he’s brings is just pathetic and I don’t see how he helps the American Team at all. Ship his monkey ass home already!

Off Topic: As much as I like the UK fighters, I got Dangerous Dan Henderson beating Mike Bisping via TKO in the 2nd round! I can’t stand Bisping. BOO!

UFC: Undisputed (Xbox 360, PS3)

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MMA fans have been waiting for a game that would capture the excitement and depth of the sport they love.   Although PRIDE FC had released an MMA game a few years back, it didn’t even come close to capturing the details of such an intricate sport as mixed martial arts. UFC: Undisputed is the latest attempt to bring the sport to consoles, taking full advantage of modern gaming technology. So how does it measure up to the real deal?

GRAPHICS 8/10

The character models in this game are awesome. The fighters look nearly identical to their real life counterparts and they take some realistic looking damage throughout the fights. Developer THQ managed to capture most of the details of all the fighters featured, most notably their trademark victory celebrations. Nothing is cooler than winning and seeing Rampage howl up at the sky or GSP do a back flip then start trying to windmill in the middle of the octagon.  The only gripe I have with the graphics are some of the backgrounds. The people in the audience look like heads on sticks for the most part. While Im not expecting to be able to read the beer label in someone’s hand in the audience, a little bit more detail would be nice. There is a huge discrepancy between how great the fighters look and how slopped together the crowd looks, especially in the front row.

PRESENTATION 9/10

There is a ton of polish on this game, other than some of the background graphics mentioned earlier. The menus are all very streamlined, the voice overs from Joe Rogan and Bruce Buffer are spot on. Even Dana makes an appearance or two. There are also a ton of MMA sponsor found on banners, shorts, and the octagon floor itself all adding to the authenticity. My only complaint is that there are a million save confirmation messages that pop up everythime you save something. It gets a bit irritating at times when you just want to get to the next scrap but have to suffer all of these pop up save confirmations that plague the game. this is just minor though, as the game’s presentation is definitely top notch.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

This is what really matters in this game. It would be nearly impossible to truly capture all of the possibilities that could come up in an MMA fight, but THQ does a pretty good job.  There are a total of 6 different fighting styles – 3 striking and 3 ground styles. The striking styles are: muay thai, kickboxing, and boxing. The ground game has: wrestling, judo, and of course jiu jitsu.  Every fighter in the game has a combination featuring one of each type, i.e. muay thai and jiu jitsu for Anderson Silva.

At first, limiting it to these styles may seem pretty bare, as mixed martial arts is just that- mixed. Fighters are never really training in only two disciplines, but it makes sense in terms of the game.  The styles are relatively the same from fighter to fighter. For instance, Thiago Alves plays almost identically to Shogun Rua simply because they both specialize in Muay thai and BJJ. What is cool is that each fighter has enough of their trademark mannerisms to make you feel like they control completely unique to others with similar styles. For instance, when BJ Penn throws a jab he bobs his head to the side immediately after, just like in real life. It’s little details like this that add to the overall experience.

The striking gameplay is surprisingly rewarding, perhaps the best aspect of the entire game.  There are a ton of devastating strikes in each fighters aresenal, all of which look awesome to pull off. Nothing is cooler than blasting someone with a superman punch from a few feet away and seeing your fist just crush the side of their face or blasting a head kick to an opponent’s unguarded temple.  They even managed to capture the clinch game, as dirty boxing and the muay thai clinch are utilized numerous times in a fight.  Shoots and sprawls are well executed, with stuffing takedowns feeling just as rewarding as driving someone into the mat.

Unfortunately, the ground component is pretty bare bones. Jiu jitsu experts only have one submission in their arsenal. While I haven’t tried every single fighter, the only performable submission I have found so far is a kimura, which seems very limited. When you’re on the ground, sometimes your fighter will throw up a random sub attempt like an armbar or triangle, but successfully submitting someone is nearly impossible unless their energy is completely drained.  Also, a lot of the control inputs on the ground don’t always execute as they should. You will be inputting the commands to transition to another position and your character will wind up doing nothing more than a butt scoot. It gets frustrating at times and I found myself wanting to stand it back up, even if I was using a fighter who is normally a beast on the mat.

Its a shame that they couldnt find a way to better incorporate the grappling aspects of a fight into this game. I’m sure in future UFC games they will find a way to upgrade this.  Luckily, the standing and clinching more than make up for any shortfalls of the ground portion.

OTHER 7/10

The game also features a career mode in which you can take a created fighter up through the ranks of the UFC. This feature is a mixed bag for me. while it is cool to put yourself in the game, or whatever character you decide to create, it is also a bit of a pain in the ass. For instance, you have to choose the training regimen for each week. You can focus on strength, cardio, speed, or sparring.  the only part you actually control is the sparring portion. The rest is simulated once you choose what you want to improve. this seems a bit tedious to me, and I would have liked to just skip ahead to the scrap itself. Some people may actually enjoy this mode, and I admit it was cool seeing my name up there victorious over GSP and other top fighters, but overall the mode isnt for me.

The other option is exhibition mode, which allows you to choose a created fighter or a real fighter from the UFC. This mode is awesome, but I would have liked the option to choose a current fighter and bring them up through the ranks of their weight class. Something like this would greatly add to the replay value instead of having to choose a fighter and an opponent after every match.  Another cool aspect is the online mode. This works basically the same as exhibition mode, only you can fight against other opponents via xbox live.  I’ve only tried a couple of online matches, but the lag was narely noticeable and its cool to see how a human opponent reacts.

OVERALL 8.5/10

This is a great game and it is definitely a blast to play. You get the impression that there will be future installments to this game franchise, especially with the growing popularity of MMA. Hopefully the future versions can add more to the ground fighting component of the game. As it is now, this game is still unmatched in terms of gaming MMA action. It is definitely one of the funnest games to come along in a loooong time. If you’re a gamer AND an MMA fan, this is a must have.