Randy Couture believes there's a "big chance" UFC 129 bout with Lyoto Machida is his last MMA fight

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

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UFC Hall of Famer and multi-time champion Randy Couture meets Lyoto Machida at the end of the month in front of the largest MMA audience for any event in North America for UFC 129 in Toronto. And though he's retired once before, Couture says this fight really could be his last in the sport.

"There's a big chance this is my last fight," Couture said on this week's ESPN UK UFC Podcast, co-hosted by MMATorch UK Specialist Chris Park. "I'm not going to be making any official announcements, I don't think anybody would buy it - I already did that once!"

"But I'm in terrific shape, I'm feeling confident about Lyoto and dialling into the attack and how we're going to get our hands on him. There's a lot of other things calling me now, and there's a chance this is the last one."

For Couture, his budding movie career - not to mention the fact that he's closing in on 48 years of age - has his attentions being pulled outside of the sport. And with the amount of time he's put into this sport, Couture admitted he's getting tired of the grind.

"I've got several other movies lined up, The Expendables 2 is coming up in September, and I've got my other businesses like the clothing company and the extension of the gym," he said. "Frankly, I'm tired of grinding it out, it's time to enjoy life."

Penick's Analysis: This fight with Machida offers Couture a chance to prove once more that he can hang with a top fighter in the division. It may or may not happen, but he's giving it one last go, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was the last fight of his career. Coming up on 48, he's not going to attempt to make a run toward the title even if he pulls off a win over Machida, not with a young, dynamic wrestler in Jon Jones on top of the division now. Win or lose, UFC 129 is probably the last time we see Couture in the Octagon, and that's not a bad thing after such a long career.

[Randy Couture art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_8950.shtml

Tomasz Drwal Joe Hybrid Duarte Aldrin de Jesus Todd Duffee

Three Reasons to Watch Nik Lentz vs. Waylon Lowe

by Michael David SmithNik LentzThe UFC made nine fights available to fans live on Saturday night, with five streaming on Facebook and four on Spike TV. And if nine UFC fights wasn't enough for you (and really, is any amount of MMA ever enough?) now there's a 10th fight available live and free at UFC.tv.

The preliminary bout between Nik Lentz and Waylon Lowe, which wasn't part of either the Facebook or Spike broadcast, is available in full online, and it's worth watching for a number of reasons: Lentz won again and won the way he wanted to win, Lowe got a stern talking-to afterward from one of the UFC's major decision-makers, and a mistake at the end of the first round showed once again that too many state athletic commissions lack competent employees.

Allow me to go into a little more detail.

 

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Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/03/29/three-reasons-to-watch-nik-lentz-vs-waylon-lowe/

Jai Bradney Ebenezer Fontes Braga Chris Brennan Marcelo Brito

Gegard Mousasi, Keith Jardine Draw in Bloody Strikeforce Fight

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As almost everyone expected, Gegard Mousasi bloodied and battered Keith Jardine on Saturday night's Strikeforce card. But as almost no one expected, Jardine showed a tremendous amount of toughness, Mousasi had a point deducted for an illegal kick, and the result was a majority draw.

It was a mess of a fight, with Jardine's face becoming a bloody mess and the referee calling a halt to the action three separate times: Once for an illegal kick, once for a low blow and once because Mousasi's mouthpiece fell out. One judge scored the fight 29-27 for Mousasi, but two judges scored it a 28-28 tie.

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/04/09/gegard-mousasi-keith-jardine-draw-in-bloody-strikeforce-fight/

Shane The Engineer Carwin Jason Hollywood Chambers Ryo Piranha Chonan Dan The Sandman Christison

Carlos Condit vs. Dong Hyun Kim Set for UFC 132

by Michael David SmithThe rapidly growing official fight card for UFC 132 has added a welterweight bout with major title implications.

Carlos Condit and Dong Hyun Kim will meet inside the Octagon at UFC 132, the promotion announced Friday. The fight has been added to a card that includes a main event of Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber and undercard fights including Wanderlei Silva vs. Chris Leben and Tito Ortiz vs. Ryan Bader.

Although most people probably don't think of Condit or Kim as one win away from a title shot, this fight could determine the next No. 1 contender in the welterweight division. If Georges St. Pierre beats Jake Shields later this month, and if he doesn't want to move up to middleweight to fight Anderson Silva after that, the UFC will be desperately seeking new challengers for St. Pierre's belt.

 

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Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/04/08/carlos-condit-vs-dong-hyun-kim-set-for-ufc-132/

Xavier Foupa Pokam Hermes Franca Rich Franklin Ian Freeman

TONIGHT: MMATorch Tuesday Livecast - UFC Fight Night 24 review, Lesnar and Dos Santos on TUF 13, the week in MMA and more on new edition of Internet call-in show with Hansen & Pelkey

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Tuesday nights, join editor-in-chief Jamie Penick and columnists Rich Hansen and Matt Pelkey from 9-10:30 p.m. ET (6-7:30 p.m. PT) for a live call-in show at BlogTalkRadio.com. Set a reminder notice now or Tuesday visit the following URL to listen: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch. BlogTalkRadio is customized for both the web and your mobile phone.

-Tonight we bring a breakdown of last weekend's UFC Fight Night 24 event, a look ahead to the new season of The Ultimate Fighter with coaches Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos, a run down of the week in MMA news and more!

Visit the following URL to listen:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch.

BlogTalkRadio is customized for both the web and your mobile phone.

You can call to participate at (646) 716-8090. That's also the number you can call during the show listen without participating with a question or comment. So if you're not near the Internet but have your phone, you can listen live, also.

The show will be archived if you don't listen live. All of our previous episodes are available on demand on BlogTalkRadio.

You can subscribe to the Livecast to hear it on delay via iTunes here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id357424499

We also have an MMATorch Podcast in iTunes featuring our pre-recorded shows such as the weekly Audio Choke, PPV Previews, Interviews, PPV Roundtables, and more. Check that out here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mma-torch-2010-ufc-news-roundtables/id253731019

You can also simply search "MMATorch" on your phone or on your computer.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/MMATorch_Podcast_45/article_8917.shtml

Jason Hollywood Chambers Ryo Piranha Chonan Dan The Sandman Christison Logan The Pink Pounder Clark

Video analysis: Can ‘Korean Zombie’ vs. Garcia II match the first fight?

Fans never lose when Leonard Garcia steps into the cage. The kid goes for broke. He's willing to take a beating to dole one out.

In highly anticipated rematch, Garcia was scheduled to face Nam Phan at Ultimate Fight Night 24. Phan went down with an injury and the UFC put together an even better fight - Garcia and Chan Sung Jung will go at it again. Their first fight at WEC 48, short on strategy but big on haymakers, was one of the best in recent MMA history.

Is there anyway Garcia and "The Korean Zombie" can come close to their first war?

Yahoo!'s lead MMA writer Kevin Iole joined us to break down the fight and tell us why some rematches fall short of expectations. We also talk about the important issue of scoring these fights and what judges look for. Garcia won the first fight, but many thought Zombie was the victor.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Video-analysis-Can-Korean-Zombie-vs-Garcia-I?urn=mma-wp540

Dan Bobish Vagam Bodjukyan Kotetsu Boku Tony Bonello

UFC 129, April 30

UFC 129
Saturday April 30, 2011
Rogers Centre
Toronto, ONT, Canada
Airing on PPV

MAIN CARD

* Georges St-Pierre (#1 Ranked Welterweight) vs. Jake Shields (#4 Ranked Welterweight) for UFC Welterweight Championship
* Jose Aldo (#1 Ranked Lightweight) vs. Mark Hominick (#6-tie Ranked Featherweight) for UFC Featherweight Championship
* Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida (#5 Ranked Light Heavyweight)
* Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson
* Jason Brilz vs. Vladimir Matyushenko

PRELIMINARY CARD (Airing on Spike)

* Nate Diaz vs. Rory MacDonald
* Brian Foster vs. Sean Pierson

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Pablo Garza vs. Yves Jabouin
* Claude Patrick vs. Daniel Roberts
* Ivan Menjivar vs. Charlie Valencia
* Jason MacDonald vs. Ryan Jensen
* John Makdessi vs. Kyle Watson

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Upcoming_Events_42/article_7865.shtml

Tony Fryklund Kazuyuki Fujita Masakatsu Funaki Zelg Benkei Galesic

Thiago Silva’s deception requires NSAC to add ‘special’ inspection

Keith Kizer didn't sign up for this. Thankfully, he's the boss, so he'll probably get someone else to do the dirty work now required because of Thiago Silva.

The UFC light heavyweight joined a short list of prominent athletes who tried to beat a drug test by submitting a false urine test. We should point out that it's a short list of athletes that have been caught.

Cagewriter first mentioned the rumors of a phony sample back on Feb. 25. The Nevada State Athletic Commission confirmed that Silva did submit a sample inconsistent with human urine. Silva  came clean taking full blame for trying to beat the system after his win over Brandon Vera at UFC 125.

We make decisions every day of our lives. Some are good, and some are bad. When you make a bad decision, you can either make the situation worse by trying to cover it up or lie about it, or just stick your head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge it even happened," Silva said in a statement to MMAjunkie. "Or you can own up to it with an honest explanation, accept the consequences of your actions, apologize to the people affected by it, learn from it and move on.

Silva said he felt pressure to use a banned substance after he re-injured his back just 45 days before the Vera bout.

Kizer dealt with the same situation back in 2006 with Kevin Randleman before a PRIDE card.

"What [Randleman] did was he grabbed the inner-thigh of his shorts, kind of pulled it open, stuck out what we thought was the tip of his penis ? it was the same color as the rest of his skin ? and then urinated in the cup and gave it to our inspector," Kizer said.

The executive director of the NSAC admits his staff will probably need to outright inspect the genitalia of fighters as they provide a sample.

"I we think might have to take it a step further … It might be a situation where inspectors have to go really close and look," said Kizer.

You love the fight game? Here's your chance to get close to the fighters. Plenty of applications available!

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Thiago-Silva-s-deception-requires-NSAC-to-add-s?urn=mma-wp834

Pat Barry Vitor Belfort Robert Berry David Bielkheden