THE MMA WEEKLY WRAP UP for the week of 8/4/08

Hello and welcome back to the MMA Weekly Wrap up. It's been a very exciting week... well, not so much for Combat Sports, but over here in Illinois, we've been battling tornadoes and power outages! I spent last night huddled with my family in the basement while Mother Nature did her thing, so this edition is a day late. Sorry about the delay.

COMBAT SPORTS AGAIN TAKES STAGE AT THE OLYMPICS
Okay, when it comes to the Olympics, most people focus on the usual sports that get all the attention; gymnastics, track, swimming, volleyball, basketball, and ping-pong -okay, maybe not 'table tennis'... but you get the idea.

For MMA fans, it's all about the contact sports; wrestling, judo, boxing, taekwondo, and maybe even a little fencing. Sure, we have to set our VCR or TiVos to record 4:30 am events, but it's all worth it. NBC is doing a nice job of using all their stations to bring as much coverage as possible this year.

To find when your favorite sport is being televised, check out their website.

To get you juiced for some of the martial action, here's a quick clip on the Lopez family as they prepare to send 2 time medalist Steven Lopez along with his brother, Mark, and Sister, Diana, to Beijing.



Also making it's debut as a demonstration sport is Wushu. Although there don't seem to be any plans to televise the competition, it will be interesting to see how a Forms contest compares against other sports. The following video clip is a bit long, but it gives a nice introduction to the art and sport of Wushu for those who might not be familiar with traditional martial arts.



And of course, there's always judo, the 'original' grappling art... Judoka always know how to celebrate!




GSP READY FOR HIS FIRST TITLE DEFENSE SINCE REGAINING HIS BELT
After winning back the Welterweight title from Matt Serra, Georges St-Pierre claims that he's better prepared for his first title defense against Jon Fitch at UFC 87:Seek and Destroy, on August 9th.

Here's the official trailer for the event:




Also, a quick interview from MMARated.com where St-Pierre talks about how he's tried to prepare himself mentally for this fight.



UNFORTUNATE NEWS FROM THE QUINTON JACKSON SITUATION
As we reported previously, the former UFC LightHeavyweight Champion, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson was involved in a Hit-and-Run accident in California where he was quickly chased and arrested by police.

CagePotato.com sadly reports that the woman who's car Jackson sideswiped in the accident was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage this week. This is unbelievably tragic news.

There has been a lot of Internet chatter about Jackson's mental state prior to the accident and arrest. State officials have cleared Jackson of any alcohol or drug use related to the incident.
Some people claim that he had earlier been hallucinating and claiming that he was 'God,' while others explain that he was on a fast to cut weight and drank one to many energy drinks. (Who fasts after an event?!)

The following clip shows Jackson picking up his truck from Street Image after having some audio work done. Rampage talks about his loss to Griffin, and for what it's worth appears rather coherent. (Warning there is a little bit of rough language in the interview and background music of this clip.)



We'll keep you updated on this story as more information is released.

LEWIS BLACK PICKS A FIGHT WITH KICKSBOXES!

I love Comedy Central's Lewis Black... but this time he's gone too far! On his show, Root of All Evil, Black has two comedians pick a couple of seemingly unrelated topics and debate which of them is worse for mankind. This week he chose MMA and Blogging as the topics.

Hey wait a second. I train MMA... and I Blog (or at least I try to). I'm beginning to think he's picking on me! What's the deal Lewis!?

Anyway, here's the rather funny intro to this last weeks show:

I guess I just can't win this one - either way I go, I'm 'Evil'.

So I'll just have to sign off now, and hope you'll return to this den of Blogging/MMA ill-repute next week when we bring you more of the 'Best of the Web' in Combat Sports

Respectfully,

Rick