We knew this day would come eventually, but Randy Couture has gone on so far past the normal limits of human athletic performance that maybe we started to believe it would never happen. Just two months shy of his 48th birthday, Couture says he sees the end of his mixed martial arts career racing towards him. He will fight Lyoto Machida at UFC 129 on April 30 in front of 55,000 fans, and win, lose or draw, he will call it quits right afterward to focus on acting and other interests. It's a decision he made once before. He retired in 2006 after losing to Chuck Liddell in the third fight of their trilogy, but with the benefit of hindsight, Couture says now that he knows that was simply a break necessary due to other trying events in his life. But this one, he says will stick. Next weekend in Toronto will be the last time we see "The Natural" in his natural environment. "I kind of want to go out on my own terms and decide when enough is enough, and I think that time has come," Couture said during a Tuesday teleconference.
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Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Bellator/article_9089.shtml
With the UFC holding the rights to over 85 percent of top 125 fighters in the world, training partners would eventually be faced with stepping into the cage with each other. Just about everyone in the fight world has an opinion on the teammates versus teammate story.
Rashad Evans agreed to do it against newly crowned UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones. That Evans-Jones matchup irks Strikeforce 205-pounder Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal. Lawal is buddies with Evans and feels like the longer tenured member of Greg Jackson's team was boxed into a corner. The problem started with Jones stepping in front of Evans to take the UFC 128 title fight against Mauricio Rua and then softening his stance on not fighting Evans.
""I think it broadsided (Evans), because they both made an agreement (not to fight) and all of a sudden someone reneges," Lawal told Five Knuckles. "I would never fight Daniel (Cormier) definitely, and he would never fight me. Then all of a sudden if he went behind my back and said, 'I'll fight Mo on TV' … that's a ho move and a ho move deserves an ass whipping."
Lawal, like many other fighters, adheres to the philosophy that training partners should never fight.
"I know none of my training partners that are my brothers would ever pull a ho move like that. If I say I ain't going to fight my brother, I ain't going to fight my brother," said Lawal.
MMA isn't that important to his wallet, so he'd find another option if forced to fight a teammate.
"I got brothers who I train with (and) I won't fight my training brothers," Lawal said. "They can fire me and I will go to the WWE, I don't care. Rashad is a brother to me, why fight him if there are other options?"
There's no such brotherhood with King Mo and Quinton Jackson. Lawal would love to fight Jackson and thinks he could handle him easily.
Tip via Cage Potato
Diego Sanchez Jorge Santiago Evangelista Santos Rey Phillip Santos
Source: http://www.fighters.com/04/15/5-reasons-why-joe-warren-could-beat-marcos-galvao
Glover Teixeira Tra Telligman Ivan Titenkov Sylvester Terkay
In a highlight that should bring a smile to some fans' faces, Patricio "Pitbull" Freire scored another devastating finish for the "Pitbull" Brothers. See, the UFC doesn't have every good fighter in the world under contract ... yet. The smaller of the two dynamos, took out a high level featherweight in Wilson Reis. "Pitbull" dominated most of the fight. Reis, a top level grappler and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt had trouble getting Freire to the ground, and eventually wore down on the feet as "Pitbull" scored the finish at 3:29 of the final round.
Freire (16-1) advances to Bellator Season 4 featherweight final where he'll face Daniel Straus. That won't be an easy fight. Straus is a monster at 145 pounds and very good grappler. He dominated Kenny Foster, finishing with a third round guillotine choke in the other semifinal on Saturday. The win was particularly impressive for the massive Straus since the fight began with Arizona afternoon temperatures around 99 degrees.
Patricio's older brother Patricky, 25, reached the Bellator Season 4 lightweight final where he'll face Lloyd Woodard.
Joe Warren was successful in a non-title fight, but barely against Marcus Galvao. Warren, a bantamweight by trade, holds the Bellator featherweight title as well. By the looks of Straus and the Patricio "Pitbull," he'll be hard pressed to exit 2011 with that Bellator 145-pound strap. Warren and "Pitbull" met in the Season 3 final, where the American posted an amazing comeback victory after getting torn up in the first round. It looks like "Pitbull" has shored up any weakness that he had with his takedown defense.
The "Pitbulls" are on the verge of stardom. The MMA blogger for the Daily Mirror in the U.K. says they have a chance to be the next Nogueira brothers.