It’s official.  Far and away the two biggest promotions in MMA have merged as the Fertittas brothers, owners of Zuffa and the UFC have bought Pride Fighting Championships.

The story as broken by Sherdog

and MMAWeekly 

Perhaps the biggest news in MMA yet, but not unprecedented (as a pro wrestling fan I remember when the WWF bought the WCW).  More on this huge story as I find out more.

Interestingly enough I’m scheduled to attend the EliteXC/Pro-Elite press conference today, I wonder what the buzz around there will be.

So I signed up for the Pan Americans of BJJ being held next weekend.  You can see me listed under Black Belt, Adult Lightweight (Leve) under my given name Alan Marques of Team Ralph Gracie.  (Almost no one calls me that anymore however).

It’s been a few years since my last competition.  Usually I feel too busy with the OTM stuff to have the same type of mentality to compete well.  (Before OTM I was a mat rat and entered every competition I could).  While I’ll still have a report on the Pan Ams, there’s a lot less pressure on me as a businessman for this one, so I’m relishing the opportunity to get back on the mat.

Every competition I’ve ever done, I’ve always stepped on the mat with the intention of winning every match, however as a matchmaker I’d be less than honest if I said I was anything other than a long shot.  There are some very experienced guys in the division, including former Pan American and World Champions.  Training has been going well, I’m relatively injury free and coming in confident, so I’m hoping to make a good showing for myself.

I have a few pounds to vut to get into lightweight.  The cut off is 167.5 and with my heaviest gi on I weighed myself at 172 pounds.  I’ve fought in both light and middleweight my entire career but I was always extremely light for middleweight, as a matter of fact at my last competition I weighed in wearing my backpack and carrying a camera and still came in underweight!  These days from either better work outs or age I walk around a bit heavier so the cut is slightly more difficult, but I figure for my black belt debut I’ll take every advantage I can get.

It would figure the day I sign up and begin to watch my diet, that Batata calls me from the academy (I had stepped out to run an errand) and asks me to go to Baskin Robbins to pick him up a milkshake!  It would figure, it’s something he never asked me for before but on one of the rare days I’m watching what I eat, he sends me into the proverbial lion’s den.  That same night, Will shows up to class with a giant coffee cake, dripping with apricot jam and custard.  (Groan)  I am extremely crabby as I am cutting weight.

Notice that the Pan Americans you weigh in as you step on the mat to compete.  I think I’m at the perfect weight right now, and will shed the last few pounds this coming week.  I’m also really tall for my weight class 6′2 -I feel this is an advantage for me.

I’m actually old enough to compete in the Master’s division, but my ego just won’t let me.  A little more than vanity,  suppose, but as one of my all time hero’s Gordo (who is well qualified for the Masters himself but always enters the adults) says “if you’re going to step up, might as well step up to the best, that way you have nothing to lose.”

This was the headline on CNN/SI online this morning, so naturally I had to click it.  The article was talking about professional wrestling however, which is something I used to avidly follow when I was younger, but haven’t so much anymore.  Nothing in here should come as a huge surprise (steroids and Pro Wrestling have been linked together in the past).  Several items of note however:  one is the allegation of former Olympic Wrestler and Gold Medalist Kurt Angle’s alleged participation (Kurt has been interviewed saying he would like to try his hand at MMA, although realistically his body is very broken down right now).  Secondly is the alleged participation of Rey Mysterio Jr., who is very unsterotypically small for a pro wrestler, illustrating it’s not just the bulked out comic books who use.  And finally is the notes on Eddie Guerrero, who died of heart failure a short few years ago in part to an enlarged heart from years of steroid abuse. 

Wrestlers allegedly tied to drug ring

Also in this column:

• Orton allegedly ordered drugs from same doctors as Matthews Jr.

Since last summer Sports Illustrated reporters Luis Fernando Llosa and L. Jon Wertheim have been investigating an alleged illegal steroid distribution network that has implicated numerous pro athletes. On Feb. 27 the two SI writers accompanied federal and state drug enforcement agents on a raid of a Jupiter, Fla., anti-aging clinic that investigators allege conspired to fraudulently prescribe steroids, human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing drugs over the Internet.

SI.com: What’s the latest?

Llosa/Wertheim: Investigators in Albany and Orlando continue to go through the material from last month’s seizures. This means everything from testing drugs found in desk drawers to cross-referencing names that, we’re told, include athletes of all levels.

SI.com: Any sense when these names will be made public?

Llosa/Wertheim: No. Obviously the “big names” are what have made this investigation a national concern. And, in all candor, it’s the main reason news organizations — including Sports Illustrated — are pursuing the story. But investigators insist that athletes are really ancillary to their investigation. They’re much more interested in breaking up the distribution pipeline which, they allege, is a marriage of fraudulent anti-aging clinics, complicit compounding pharmacies and doctors who rubber-stamp prescriptions for human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone, steroids, etc., often without examining the patients.

For example, David Wilbirt, an Arizona doctor, was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency from 2001 to 2005 for allegedly writing 3,879 prescriptions between November 2004 and April 2005, all for “patients” who had requested drugs over the Internet. Though that was two years ago, his name has surfaced several times in the official documents we reviewed from the “Operation Netroids” investigation.

SI.com: Do investigators believe any of Wilbirt’s “patients” were athletes?

Llosa/Wertheim: Yes. We’d already seen his name come up in conjunction with Kurt Angle, a 1996 Olympic gold-medal-winning freestyle wrestler and now a star professional wrestler who allegedly received two prescriptions for trenbolone and one for nandrolone between October 2004 and February ‘05. It turns out Angle isn’t the only pro wrestler alleged to have received prescriptions from Wilbirt. According to the official documents we reviewed, Wilbirt was billed for HCG and the steroid stanozolol that were sent to WWE star Eddie Guerrero in early 2005. (Guerrero died on Nov. 13, 2005, in a Minneapolis hotel room due to what a coroner later ruled as heart disease, complicated by an enlarged heart resulting from a history of anabolic steroid use.) Wilbirt also allegedly issued prescriptions for the steroids nandrolone and stanozolol to Oscar Gutierrez, whose stage name is Rey Mysterio. (Through the WWE, Gutierrez declined comment.)

When reached at his home Wilbirt spoke with us briefly, asserting, “I’m not even practicing medicine now, so… I don’t remember doing half the stuff you’re talking about.” (The Arizona Medical Board confirms that his license is currently suspended.) Asked specifically about the professional wrestlers, Wilbirt remarked: “I’ll tell you one thing and then this conversation is going to end. They had done blood work and had laboratory work done and they had come to see me.” Wilbirt obviously remains a “person of interest” for the investigators.

In total, there were 11 professional wrestlers listed in the documents that we saw. Some of these wrestlers are working as independents; some are out of the business entirely; others are first-tier stars. Consider Randy Orton, who allegedly received eight prescriptions for six different drugs — stanozolol, nandrolone, anastrozole, Clomiphene citrate, oxandrolone and testosterone — between March 2004 and August 2004. (Through the WWE, Orton declined comment.) Interestingly, according to the documents, Orton’s prescriptions came from the same two doctors whose names appeared on the prescriptions in major league outfielder Gary Matthews Jr.’s file.

SI.com: Most of the athletes named in your previous stories were allegedly receiving human growth hormone. It sounds as though the professional wrestlers were allegedly mostly receiving steroids.

Llosa/Wertheim: Right. At some level this stands to reason: The skill-set required for pro wrestling is obviously different from that of most other competitive sports. According to the documents two prominent wrestlers, Adam Copeland, a.k.a. Edge, and Shane Helms, a.k.a. The Hurricane, received HGH. (Through the WWE, Copeland and Helms didn’t respond to a request for comment.) But virtually all the others allegedly received a wide variety of anabolic steroids. In each case these were supplied by Applied, the Mobile, Ala., compounding pharmacy that was raided last fall.

SI.com: Does the WWE have a drug policy?

Llosa/Wertheim: Gary Davis, a WWE spokesman, pointed us to a Talent Wellness Program instituted in February 2006. As to whether anabolic steroids and HGH are banned, Davis sent us an email quoting the policy: “The WWE policy prohibits the use of performance-enhancing drugs, as well as other prescription drugs which can be abused, if taken for other than a legitimate medical purpose pursuant to a valid prescription from a licensed and treating physician. For purposes of WWE’s policy, prescriptions obtained over the Internet and/or from suppliers of prescription drugs from the Internet are not considered to have been given for a legitimate medical purpose.”

Citing privacy issues, Davis declined to say whether WWE wrestlers have tested positive for banned substances since the policy was implemented.

Historic Grappling Summit Held
One of the most significant announcements in Submission Grappling ever in my opinion. I only found out about this meeting was going to happen on Thursday of last week (it is my understanding this was pretty last second for everyone), so my information on it is all second hand (I’ve talked to Scotty, Ryan Gregg, and Brian Cimins). Also on the meeting, were Kipp Kollar and representatives from No Limits and the ISWA.

Why is this important?

First of all, to my knowledge this is the first time many of the top grappling promoters in the country have been in the same room and have been forced to work for a common agenda. That is in itself is significant, because collectively they can take the sport further than any one individual can.

Secondly, for anyone who wants to see Submission Grappling in the Olympics, this is a HUGE step towards that dream. Lost in the press release is the notice that there will be a USA Team Trials, and a World Championship to be held Sept 7-9 of this year in Turkey. Supposedly at least 16 countries are on board to participate in the World Championships, which will include Sambo, beach wrestling, and traditional wrestling.

A true “International” World Championships THIS YEAR. That’s a humongous announcement. Details for the trials are still being worked out.

It is my understanding that the parties mentioned in this release, and the USA Grappling organization, will be reporting to a larger World Grappling Organization.

While I believe this is tremendous news, and I’m very excited about the prospects for our sport, there are a few cautions as well. First of all, I’m curious about the role of FILA stepping in and regulating the sport of Submission Grappling. While organization wise there are years ahead of anyone else involved with the sport, they have not had any contact with submission grappling yet, and as such the balance of power in my mind (or the roots for success in this project) is pretty even between FILA and the above mentioned promoters who have worked so hard for many years in this sport already. Exactly how this works out in the long run is anyone’s guess.

Secondly the rulebook Is already in place and supposedly locked, and the rules are unlike anything anything that has widely been in place before, and most of those people who have been long term in this sport have had little to no input on that rulebook. I think the methodology of how it was put through troubles me more than the rulebook itself. If the rules are untested I can’t really say anything until I see them in effect. Some competitors will always look for the submission, and some will always look to win within the rules. Different rulebooks don’t really dictate people’s style too much.

So I am very optimistic about the announcement, with a few reservations, but I look forward to working with everyone to take Submission Grappling to the next level.

This explains why Batata is so damn tough….

From Live Science

Some promoter has got to set this up.  I’ve seen interviews with Carina before, but haven’t had a chance to see her in action until the Bodog Fights show on Ion TV today.  She was caught in an armbar by Rosie Sexton however, not the best introduction to the world, but as skilled as she may be, she’s going to be attracting as much attention for being the “Battling Barbie”

The BoDog show is actually pretty entertaining, surprised it doesn’t have more of a buzz going around on the net…yet.  I’ll try to get more coverage on OTM for it.

And I couldn’t be happier.

Randy Couture defies all logic and nature to once again become the light heavyweight champion.  I’m usually love to say I told you so, but to be honest I was initially completely against this bout.  Original Blog post:  Couture vs Sylvia?

Truth be told I was more worried for Randy’s safety than anything.  But Randy not only won, he dominated the bout against one of the premiere big men in the sport today.  For that matter I wasn’t even looking forward to this UFC card (especially in the wake of the awesome Pride show last week), but Randy’s performance was certainly one for the ages.

Like Joe Rogan said, I’m simply speechless.