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Sunday, Mar 10, 2013

Full Contact Fighter’s “The Daily Takedown:” Hunt Steps Up, Fitch Lands, Overeem’s Stock Falling

Mark Hunt

By Joshua Molina

Around the world in MMA . . .

With the incredible shrinking man Alistair Overeem out with an injury, Mark Hunt has stepped up to fight Junior Dos Santos.

Junior Dos Santos appears on the fast track back to a title shot against Cain Velasquez, whose only challenge against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva will be to see if he can extract even more blood from Silva’s head in less time than the first fight.

Dos Santos’ manager has suggested that Overeem didn’t want to fight the former UFC champ. He’s probably right. Overeem folded faster than a lawn chair once he got hit against the slow Bigfoot. Against Dos Santos, the guy who walked into the cage against Bigfoot, wouldn’t stand a chance against Cigano.

. . . Jon Fitch has signed a four-year deal with the World Series of Fighting. Fitch, an incredibly skilled, but notoriously boring defensive fighter, was fired by the UFC after a loss to Demian Maia.

The UFC’s firing of Fitch must be personal because if the UFC is the best MMA company in the world, Fitch deserves to be fighting on that stage. He did afterall, take out rising star Erick Silva to school for a night last October, in a UFC Fight of the Night.

Fitch derailed the rapid fire Silva, shades of a young Roberto Duran, and showed that he can still scrap with the best.

Oddly, Silva is still in the UFC, but Fitch isn’t.

. . . Lots of talk in MMA about transgendered fighter Fallon Fox, born as a man, but is now legally a woman.

Fox’s battle is a big step for the transgendered community. If the International Olympic Committee allows transgendered fighters to compete under strict rules, certainly MMA should.

Besides, if you are a woman it’s probably better to fight a woman, born as a man, who is drug free, than fight a woman, who is doping, who has the muscle mass of a man.

. . . In a battle of ex-Strikeforce stars, Jake Shields will fight Tyron Woodley at UFC 161 on June 15. Shields sure has fallen from his high point of fighting Georges St-Pierre in front of the largest MMA audience in North American history in Canada.

Shields lost in a boring fight to GSP, was then knocked out by Jake Ellenberger and has looked lackluster and drained in his UFC victories over Martin Kampmann and Yoshihiro Akiyama. His decision victory over Ed Herman was overturned because he tested positive for a banned substance.

Woodley was destroyed by Nate Marquardt, but then bounced back with a knockout victory over Jay Hieron.

Shields is a masterful grappler and Woodley is a good wrestler. George W. Bush was still president the last time Jake Shields knocked anyone out, so expect this fight to be fought on the mat, with Shields smothering Woodley.

Woodley best chance is to knock Shields out, but Shields has been hit by Dan Henderson and Ellenberger and knows what it feels like by now to get hit hard. Expect Shields to be on his knees shooting for the takedown as early as he can.

posted by JoshuaM @ 1:58 pm
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