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UFC ON VERSUS

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of UFC on VERSUS on March 21 live from the FirstBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific!

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DREAM 13

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of DREAM 13 coming to you from the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan on March 22. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 3 AM Eastern/12 AM Pacific!

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STRIKEFORCE: CHALLENGERS

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of STRIKEFORCE: CHALLENGERS on March 26 live from the SavMart Center in Fresno, CA. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific!

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UFC 111: GSP VS. HARDY

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of UFC 111: St. Pierre vs. Hardy live from the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ on March 27. The event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy and feature a heavyweight showdown between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin! Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific!

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UFC FIGHT NIGHT: FLORIAN VS. GOMI

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of UFC Fight Night: Florian vs. Gomi live from the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, NC on March 31. The event will be headlined by a lightweight battle between Kenny Florian and Takanori Gomi. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 8:00 PM Eastern/5:00 PM Pacific!

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BELLATOR XIII

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of Bellator Fighting XIII live from the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida on April 8. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 7:30 PM Eastern/4:30 PM Pacific!

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BELLATOR XIV

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of Bellator Fighting XIV live from the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois on April 15. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 7:30 PM Eastern/4:30 PM Pacific!

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STRIKEFORCE: NASHVILLE

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of Strikeforce: Nashville live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN on April 17. The event will be headlined by a middleweight title fight between Jake Shields and Dan Henderson and feature the US debut of Japanese submission god Shinya Aoki! Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific!

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MFC 25: VINDICATION

--THE SAVAGE SCIENCE will present live play by play coverage of MFC 25: Vindication live from the Edmonton Expo Center in Edmonton, Alberta on April 17. Join us for the BEST live fight narrative in the world–the action begins 10 PM Eastern/7 PM Pacific!

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Gurgel/Heun slugfest highlights STRIKEFORCE Challengers

Written by Jim Murphy   |   Sunday, June 21 2009

gurgel3Jorge Gurgel and Conor Heun fought toe to toe like this for fifteen minutes, stealing the show from the main event at the most recent Strikeforce Challengers card (Photo: Showtime/Strikeforce)
STRIKEFORCE Challengers returned to Showtime on Friday night, and despite one of the poorest officiating jobs seen on a US MMA event in some time delivered another exciting evening of fights.  Joey Villasenor earned a split decision victory in the main event over a game Evangelista ‘Cyborg’ Santos, but a standup war between BJJ blackbelts Jorge Gurgel and Conor Heun on the undercard stole the show.  Gurgel would eventually take a unanimous decision victory, but Heun raised his stock with a courageous performance in the loss.

The main event featured two fighters that had been out of action for nearly a year for drastically different reasons.  Villasenor was caught up in the contractual limbo after the demise of Elite XC, while ‘Cyborg’ had suffered a nasty elbow injury in a fight against Siyar ‘Black Mamba’ Bahadurzada at Sengoku 5.  Despite the lengthy layoffs, neither fighter appeared to suffer any ‘ring rust’—‘Cyborg’ in particular looked to be in the best physical shape of his career and demonstrated a vastly improved technical striking game.  During his run in the Japanese fight promotion PRIDE and later Sengoku, ‘Cyborg’ had a reputation as a free swinging ‘head hunter’ with conditioning issues.   Based on his performance against Villasenor, those liabilities may no longer be an issue.

As the fight progressed, Villasenor’s superior boxing skills prevailed as he began to pick apart his opponent.  ‘Cyborg’ was competitive throughout, however, and hurt Villasenor’s lead leg with his repeated Muay Thai kicks.  By the end of the fight, Villasenor was noticeably limping but was able to use his fast hands and sharp striking to keep Cyborg at bay.  Villasenor would eventually prevail by scores of 29-28, 29-28, 28-29. 

Despite a competitive effort in the main event, it paled in comparison to the furious action delivered by BJJ black belts Conor Heun and Jorge Gurgel earlier in the evening.  The two fighters completely ignored their ground virtuosity and simply traded and banged for three rounds.  Gurgel earned the unanimous decision victory with scores of 30-27, 30-27 29-28 (The Savage Science had the fight scored 29-28 for Heun). 

In the semifinal bout, US Army Special Forces sniper Tim Kennedy earned a second round submission victory over veteran Nick ‘The Goat’ Thompson.  Kennedy controlled the opening round with his superior strength, though Thompson did a nice job on the ground countering several submission attempts.  The fight ended abruptly in the second round—after a Kennedy takedown, he began a ‘ground and pound’ attack from half guard.  Seemingly out of nowhere, Thompson tapped out and complained after the stoppage that Kennedy was hitting to the back of the head.  In any case, the outcome by that point was in little doubt given Kennedy’s level of dominance.

The Strikeforce women’s division may have found a standard bearer at 135 to go along with the higher profile Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg at 145. Sarah Kaufmann delivered another punishing performance as she easily won a unanimous decision over a game Shayna Baszler.   Baszler took the first round with her strong ground game and unorthodox submissions, but abandoned that gameplan for the rest of the fight opting to stand and trade punches with Kaufman.  Baszler showed a lot of heart and toughness, but couldn’t compete with Kaufman’s superior punching. 

In the opening bout of the live event, Luke Rockhold obliterated Cory Devela winning by early first round submission.  Rockhold floored Devela with a straight right hand seconds into the fight and after a ground and pound barrage transitioned into a rear naked choke for a quick tapout. 

The Rockhold/Devela fight most vividly highlighted the dubious officiated that would plague the rest of the card.  After Rockhold floored Devela, he landed over a half dozen uncontested power shots with no stoppage.  In his post fight comments, even he questioned the slow stoppage and said that he decided to go for the submission since the referee appeared to have no interest in stopping his punching assault.  On several other occasions, the officials called for standups during active groundfighting sequences and gave warnings to ‘step it up’ on the ground when both fighters were working hard.   In the main event, Santos used a handful of Villasenor’s trunks to get a takedown.   

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BJJ
written by MMA , July 14, 2009
gurgel had nothing leg kicks
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