GSP Wins, Couture KO'd at UFC 129

Georges St. Pierre defended his Welterweight title with a 5-round unanimous decision victory over Jake Shields. The fight stayed on the feet for almost the entire 25 minutes. Shields hit GSP with what looked like a knuckle to his open left eye, St. Pierre said he could not see out of it. Not completely dominate, but there was no doubt when the horn sounded that GSP was the winner. After the fight he was noncommittal about moving up to middleweight and fighting Anderson Silva.

Couture done like that? Randy "The Natural" Couture said prior to the fight with Lyoto Machida, that he would retire. The 47 year old former champion was knocked out in the 1st round by something out of The Karate Kid. Machida landed a devastating kick to the face that sent Captain America to the ground. That was it... or will he be back?

Jose Aldo (boring) Vladimir Matyushenko (20 seconds TKO punches), and Ben Henderson (decision) were all winners on the night's main card.

-Keefe

Couture vs. Toney at UFC 118 in Boston

According to UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture's twitter account he will be facing professional boxer turned mixed martial artist James Toney at UFC 118 on August 28th at the TD Garden in Boston, MA.

The former heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Couture takes on Toney who will be making his UFC and MMA debut after signing a contract with the organization in March.

Couture: (18-10 MMA)
Toney: (72-6-3 Boxing)

Other potential bouts at UFC 118:

Frankie Edgar (champ) vs. B.J. Penn for Lightweight Title
Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard
Randy Couture vs. James Toney
Joe Lauzon vs. TBA

-Keefe

Brandon Jennings is Absurd

Last night Brandon Jennings dropped 55 points on the Warriors in a Bucks win. He shot 62% from the floor including 7/8 from 3. Jennings also added 5 rebounds and 5 assists. He's got a Bucks team, playing without Michael Redd, at 5-2 to start the year.

You think the Knicks (Jordan Hill), T-Wolves (Ricky Rubio debacle), and even Grizzlies (Hasheem Thabeet) would like to have their draft picks back. Minnesota drafted 2 point guards ahead of Jennings. Unbelievable.

Rather than dominating the PAC-10 and all of college basketball, Jennings went to Italy, where he struggled playing professional basketball against grown men. Well, he certainly got the most out of it, and was much more prepared than a year of college (See: Holiday, Jrue).

I am a huge Jennings fan, and the Knicks & T-Wolves will regret their picks for years to come.

-Keefe

Also UFC 105 is in the books. Randy Couture gets the win over Brandon Vera. Dan Hardy, shockingly earns a welterweight title shot following a decision victory over Mike Swick, and Michael Bisping beat Denis Kang.

Tito vs. Forrest II this Saturday!

Keefe's Pick 3 for Week 10

Finally did what I set out to do when I started (Week 2) and that's a 3-0 week. Also went 3-0 on the Strikeforce fights. Let's try and make it another 6-0 weekend between NFL Week 10 and UFC 105.

Bengals (+7) over Steelers
Patriots (+3) over Colts
Ravens (-11) over Ravens

UFC 105
Couture over Vera (decision)
Swick over Hardy (2nd round KO)
Kang over Bisping (1st round KO)

NFL Pick 3:
Last Week: 3-0
Overall: 12-12

-Keefe

The Sports Brief's UFC Rankings (6-13-08)

We here at The Sports Brief have decided to combine our individual UFC Rankings into one mega-power ranking that will be updated monthly. As of right now this is our list of Top 10 fighters in each of the weight classes recognized by the UFC. There is a great chance however, that after the unbelievably stacked Affliction card in July, which features such fighters as Fedor, Sylvia, Barnett, Rizzo, Lil Nog, Vitor Belfort, Arlovski, Matt Lindland, Babalu, and others we may change formats to an all MMA Ranking. But for now here are the best fighters that the UFC have to offer.

Heavyweight:

1. Randy Couture
2. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
3. Fabricio Werdum
4. Brandon Vera
5. Frank Mir
6. Heath Herring
7. Cheick Kongo
8. Gabriel Gonzaga
9. Brock Lesnar
10. Shane Carwin

Couture is still our champ, so he is number one. The departures of Andrei and Big Tim really hurt this weight class, where a fighter who is 0-1 in the octagon can be ranked 9. Vera doesn’t fall much due to what we thought was an early stoppage vs. Werdum.

Light Heavyweight:

1. Quinton Jackson
2. Chuck Liddell
3. Lyoto Machida
4. Forrest Griffin
5. Wanderlei Silva
6. Maurcio ‘Shogun’ Rua
7. Thiago Silva
8. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
9. Keith Jardine
10. Rashad Evans

This division is tough to figure out since everyone has beaten everyone. I (Keefe) really like Shogun still, but his inactivity and loss to Forrest drop him to 6. You can make a number of intriguing match ups here. Rampage vs. Forrest finally comes next month. And one of the biggest questions for this weight class still remains, what organization will former champ Tito Ortiz sign with?

Middleweight:

1. Anderson Silva
2. Dan Henderson
3. Rich Franklin
4. Yushin Okami
5. Patrick Cote
6. Ricardo Almeida
7. Nathan Marquardt
8. Thales Leites
9. Chris Leben
10. Michael Bisping

Knocking on the door: Jason MacDonald, Nathan Quarry, Damain Maia

Like Tom Hanks, Anderson Silva is in a league of his own. He owns dominant victories over everyone he has faced in the UFC including close to half of this top 10. Rumors of a Spider vs. Iceman fight linger, and we wouldn’t object to that. Henderson against Franklin would be intriguing, but what do you do with the winner? Hendo/ Silva II or Franklin/ Silva III? Don’t think so.

Welterweight:

1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Jon Fitch
3. Thiago Alves
4. Josh Koscheck
t-5. Matt Hughes
t-5. Matt Serra
7. Diego Sanchez
8. Karo Parisyan
9. Mike Swick
10. Marcus Davis

Alves didn’t make weight, but still the performances against Karo and Hughes vault him up the leaderboard. GSP fights Fitch for the title in August. Mike Swick looked very comfortable at 170 against Davis, and let’s hope we still see Hughes vs. Serra.

Lightweight:

1. BJ Penn
2. Sean Sherk
3. Joe Stevenson
4. Kenny Florian
5. Roger Huerta
6. Tyson Griffin
7. Clay Guida
8. Frankie Edgar
9. Nate Diaz
10. Gray Maynard

Knocking at the door: Spencer Fisher, Matt Wiman, Rich Clementi

Similar to the middleweight division it’s a one man weight class. B.J. Penn cemented himself as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in MMA after blowing through Sherk. Huerta vs. Ken-Flo is upcoming, but does Penn fight the winner or GSP? It’s shaping up to be a pretty deep division, solid Top 10 with good honorable mentions. Yes, we showed “Some Love” to Rich Clementi.