UFC: hughes vs. gracie results

last night Joyce Gracie fought Matt Hughes in the most talked about fight in the short history of the UFC. for details about the fight and the arguments surrounding predictions, refer to my previous post and comments: UFC: hughes vs. gracie. Royce Gracie won three of the first four UFC contests (fighting three or four matches in one night) and Matt Hughes is the current UFC welterweight champion.

BTW - if you're wondering what happened to my other posts about the UFC... I decided that they were too off topic for this blog and removed them. while this isn't an entirely work related blog (e.g. posts about traveling and SCUBA) it is primarily a work centric blog and having scores of UFC posts wouldn't be appropriate.

if you haven't heard yet, or watched the fight. Hughes was able to control Gracie on the ground and eventually took his back. when Hughes hit Gracie with a barrage of answered shots to the head, referee John Mcarthy stopped the fight. Hughes won by TKO in the first round.

I was reading some posts about the fight on sherdog.com and I was disappointed to read things like "Royce was robbed" and "the ref stopped it too quickly." just to be sure, I watched the fight again; I don’t believe the fight was stopped too quickly.

before the Hughes/Gracie fight, I heard a number of people (including some of my instructors) say things like "I would like to see Gracie win, but I think that Hughes will win." comments like this demonstrate a solid understanding of modern mixed martial arts (MMA). it’s not a real fight—there are time limits and rules.

a friend of mine argues that the first UFCs were basically ads for Gracie jujitsu and that Royce didn't have to fight any well-rounded opponents. however, one cannot ignore the fact that the Gracies were largely responsible for the success of the UFC (and all of MMA) and the introduction of grappling to the North American public. saying that they hoped that Gracie would win showed that these people respected what grappling has done for MMA. Royce deserves respect.

then there is the other side of these prediction. Matt Hughes is an example of the modern MMA fighter. he proved this by defeating Gracie-- Royce's first loss in the UFC. Matt Hughes has forced fans to deal with the reality of modern MMA.

east canada grappling champions

I recently competed in the Eastern Canada Grappling Championship. it was an all around excellent event. the competition was hosted in New Brunswick and there were competitors from many provinces. it was a very professional event and the fights were exciting.

here's a shot of one of the guys from the dojo where I train (Bushido-Kai Jujitsu). he pulled off an amazing double armbar. as you can see, the ref was right there and expecting the tap. eventually, he switched to a single and the guy tapped out.

- nice move!

Halo 3 E3 trailer

so in case there is a Halo fan on the planet who hasn't seen the Halo 3 E3 trailer, check it out.

I got a kick out of the fact that they chose "Finish the Fight" as the tag line for Halo 3. my second Halo book was called Halo 2 Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Finishing the Fight.

as for the my general feeling about the trailer, it lacked any substance whatsoever. this is fine, but the goal of a teaser is to tease and this one didn't give me anything to get excited about.

the only minor point of interest was that the assault rifle was prominently featured. I didn't mention the assault rifle in my short Halo 3 wish list, but it was something that bugged me. why remove a perfectly reasonable weapon? I believe the rationale was that it was too much like the SMG and changing it to a real rifle would make it too much like the battle rifle. well, the assault rifle showed up in the trailer which strongly suggests that bungie found a way to make it work.