Testosterone Festival Showcase in Houston October 17-18
October 5, 2009 by Garp
Filed under Announcements, Blog, Feature, MMA
We are very proud to be taking the Texas Testosterone Festival across the stage, building on the success of our inaugural event. Immersed in Ink, the national tattoo convention, has invited The Texas Testosterone Festival to showcase during their festival at the Marriott Westchase October 17 and 18.
The Import All-Stars Auto Con is happening at Immersed in Ink but the MMA Bootcamp Intensive has been cancelled! If you pre-registered, please email us for your refund: info@texastestosteronefestival.com
MMA Bootcamp Intensive Coming to TTF in Houston!
September 17, 2009 by Garp
Filed under Announcements, Blog, Feature, Video
Our apologies. The MMA Bootcamp Intensive in Houston October 17-18 during the Immersed in Ink Festival at the Marriott Westchase has been cancelled. The Immersed In Ink Festival, however, goes on!
In unrelated news, best of luck to Sam Hoger in his next fight!
Phil Cardella Attacks From the Back
Jon Kirk Ground and Pound
Melvin Guillard Using the Fence
Rocky Long Boxing for MMA
Kamal Shalorus Takedowns and Takedown Defense
Ricco Rodriguez HERE next weekend then at King of Kombat!
We’re happy to announce over and over again that former UFC Heavyweight Champion Ricco Rodriguez will be making an appearance at this year’s Texas Testoterone Festival. He’ll be signing autographs and taking photos with fans young and old. All of the info about his appearance can be found HERE.
This may be the last time you’ll be able to press flesh with the man in Texas before he makes his way to the Austin Music Hall for the next amazing King of Kombat show, Judgement Day, fighting local rising MMA fighter Justin Howard on Aug. 27.
Also on the card will be a slew of Austin MMA fighters. Nick “The Ghost” Gonzalez, veteran of EliteXC and Strikeforce, the current King of Kombat lightweight champion is fighting Indiana resident Dustin Neace, the current King of Kombat featherweight champ. Nick always brings it. This fight is going to be a barnburner. Also, both from Austin, at 145, Randy Gray vs. Josh Scales. At 155, TAMMA champ Austinite Jacob Austin faces Dallas resident Navied Sadeghi. Another fight to watch at 155, Austin vs. Dallas again as Randy Vera fights Jesus Rivera (begging the question, was the last name “Rivera” “Veravera” initially?). I digress. Continuing the Austin vs. Dallas theme, the only two 185′ers on the card will touch gloves Aug. 27, Chris Trammel (Austin) and Chris Byrd (Dallas).
And So Is UFC’s Melvin Guillard!
Houston Sports Gallery Presents UFC Lightweight Contender Melvin Guillard at The Texas Testosterone Festival.
Melvin made his debut on the National MMA scene during The Ultimate Fighter Season 2 on Spike TV. He competed at welterweight, including a TKO of Marcus Davis in the season finale. After moving to the reinstated Lightweight division, Melvin has been 4-2 with TKOs over Gabe Ruediger and Dennis Siver and losses only to fellow top contenders Joe Stevenson and Rich Clementi. Melvin is next scheduled to compete in UFC Fight Night 19 against Nate Diaz in the headlining bout for the September 16 free-on-tv show.
Fellow Testosterone Festival attendee Ricco Rodriguez awarded Melvin his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Blue Belt recently, all part of his quest for the top of the UFC’s Lightweight division. Melvin will be available for autographs in Houston Sports Gallery’s exhibit space from 1 PM to 3 PM on Saturday, August 15 and 1 PM to 2 PM on Sunday, August 16.
Houston Sports Gallery is the first of it kind in sports memorabilia, specializing in only MMA autographs with the largest selection in the usa. HSG has a wide variety of MMA autographs including: pictures, gloves, trunks and many framed items. Stop by their exhibit space and have a look for yourself.
Amir Sadollah In-Depth at UFC.com
Great article on Amir Sadollah’s preparation for his fight Saturday night versus Johny Hendricks is now up on UFC.com.
Some highlights: “Amir Sadollah swept onto the UFC scene in 2008, light on experience but heavy on skills, talent and heart. In the process, he became the middleweight winner of The Ultimate Fighter’s seventh season, a charismatic and humble Surgical Technician out of Virginia who quickly gained a legion of fans with his feel-good Cinderella run.”
“He’s used his time constructively, but Sadollah admits to getting frustrated at times while he has had to wait to get back in the Octagon. After winning (The Ultimate Fighter TV Show Season) 7 and moving to Las Vegas to train with his coach on the show, Forrest Griffin, Sadollah undoubtedly had plans to hit the ground running in the UFC.”
““The biggest thing I had to learn to correct was working too hard,” Sadollah says of his transition to Las Vegas after TUF 7.”
““I’m very young, very raw; I’m still hoping to go a lot further. I think the minute you even start to entertain the idea that you might be happy where you are, is when you stop growing. I never think like that. I’m proud to have gotten to where I have but it’s nowhere near the top and it’s nowhere near where I tell myself I can be.” ”
Amir is running a Mixed Martial Arts Seminar Presented by King of Kombat on Saturday, August 15. Visit this link to preregister to participate now.
Amir will also be participating in a live Q&A with Steve Sievert of MMAJunkie.com, also Presented by King of Kombat. Both events are available to witness by anyone with a ticket to The Texas Testosterone Festival. Purchase tickets for you, your friends, and acquaintances today.
Amir Sadollah UFC 101 Betting Line
MMAMania.com reports Amir Sadollah is the favorite going into his fight with the lowly Johny Hendricks August 8. Amir is a -130 (meaning you would have to bet $130 to win $100. Hendricks is Even.
Biggest favorites on the card are Anderson Silva and Thales Leites at -350 and biggest underdogs are their opponents (of course) Forrest Griffin and Alessio Sakara, respectively, at +250 (bet $100 to win $250).
Our picks are Sadollah (-130), Griffin (+250), Kenny Florian (+180 but expect him to become a bigger underdog as the fight nears), and Ricardo Almeida (-165). Sadollah is making his debut at 170 pounds.
These lines will move.
To meet Amir, check out his live Q&A with MMAJunkie.com’s Steve Sievert, and experience The Texas Testosterone Festival purchase tickets for $6 in advance (plus $1.14 service charge) here.
To participate in Amir’s Mixed Martial Arts Seminar presented by King of Kombat or our Jiu Jitsu Seminar or Tournament pre-register for $50 per event here.
Johny Hendricks Thinks He Has A Chance Against Amir Sadollah
(insert laughter here)
Now click here to buy a ticket to The Texas Testosterone Festival so you can meet Amir Sadollah.
“Dana White Won’t Do It - But I Will”
Texas Testosterone Festival founder Mr. Phelps has vowed to go where UFC President Dana White will not. “Dana said he would base-jump the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas if UFC 100 exceeded 1.5 million pay-per-view buys,” says Phelps. USA Today reported yesterday the pay-per-view may have done so.
“I don’t think Dana White will do it. But I will. I will base-jump the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino if we have 1.5 million visitors to The Texas Testosterone Festival August 15 and 16.”
“That pay-per-view was international and we’re just a local venue but their show lasted only three hours and our Festival will last two whole days, so I don’t see the number being out of reach.”
Phelps added, “What is base-jumping?”
Amir Sadollah Prepares for UFC 101
And the dude has a MMA Seminar at The Texas Testosterone Festival Presented by King of Kombat on Saturday, August 15. Register today to confirm your spot: http://amirsadollahseminar.eventbrite.com/
It’s Time… For the UFC to Create a Cruiserweight Division
Fightlinker has a great post today about the UFC’s Heavyweight division and how it has now grown from the talented but lesser division in comparison to Japan’s talent (”Fighters like Fedor, Cro Cop, Barnett, Nogueira, Coleman, Werdum, Kharitinov, Aleks, Herring, and Hunt competed in Japan”) to a division that is now better than any other promotion’s Heavyweight class and among the UFC’s most talent-rich. It’s now time to split the UFC’s Heavyweight division into Cruiserweight and Heavyweight divisions.
Fightlinker correctly writes “If big names like Lesnar, Mir, Couture, Nogueira, Herring, and Kongo weren’t enough, Junior dos Santos upset Fabrico Werdum in his UFC debut last year and put the division on notice. Shane Carwin recently cemented himself as a contender by smashing his ham-fists into Gabe Gonzaga’s face en route to a TKO victory. If Cain Velasquez is able to do something similar to Kongo at UFC 99, he too will join the sport’s upper echelon.” Add to this division the return of Cro Cop, talented young fighter Pat Barry, and the introduction of Kimbo Slice and an all Heavyweight cast in the next season of The Ultimate Fighter and you have a lot of talent from which to cull matchups from.
The problem with matchmaking this division has become the great size disparity between guys like Couture, Barry, and Cro Cop when compared to Lesnar, Carwin, and Tim Hague, who defeated Barry at UFC 98 while utilizing an over 30 pound weight advantage over Barry. The creation of a Cruiserweight division would be instantly marketable, extend careers, and provide for more fair competition.
Weight Disparity
When Randy Couture was defeated by Brock Lesnar last November there was at least a 45 pound weight disparity between the two fighters. It has been widely commented that Lesnar needs to cut to make the Heavyweight Division’s 265 pound weight limit while Couture is the former Light Heavyweight Champion, a division with a limit of only 205. It is remarkable the athletic commissions are willing to allow matchups of fighters with as much as a 50 pound weight difference come fight time. The UFC needs to be pro-active before the athletic commisssions begin to look at this relic from the “David vs. Goliath” tournaments of the old UFC.
Pat Barry’s recent loss to Tim Hague, a much larger fighter, and the destruction of marketable guys like Brandon Vera at the hands of the Tim Sylvias and Fabricio Werdums point to a gap between the Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight divisions that needs to be filled. Vera has been 2-1 since dropping to Light Heavyweight but seems to have lost the pop he had at a larger weight. Barry too seems to relish the thought of being the smaller fighter in the Octagon but one has to wonder how his talent matches not with the biggest of UFC’s competitors but with opponents his own size.
Randy Couture
When Randy Couture lost to Ricco Rodriguez at UFC 39 he was smothered by a much larger opponent. Rodriguez is a talented fighter but his size advantage was too great for Couture to be able to compete fairly. With this fight in the wake of a loss to the also-larger Josh Barnett it seemed Couture’s career may have had its best days in the rear-view mirror. Of course, this preceded Couture’s awe-inspiring and unprecedented reign as Light Heavyweight Champion and a trilogy of classic fights with Chuck Liddell but Couture has now said he does not want to make the cut to 205 again.
Couture’s value to the UFC is more than any other fighter’s. His Pay-Per-View sales are greater than that of any other fighter and his popularity with the casual MMA fan is incomparable. One has to feel Couture is competing on borrowed time - he has already “retired” once and is now closer to 50 than 40 and stands with Mark Coleman as the oldest competitors in the UFC. Couture’s career should be nurtured as much as possible. Fights with larger men like Brock Lesnar only endanger his career and demotivate a willing competitor. However, fights with men closer in size such as Coleman, Cro Cop, Barry, and other new talent not only keep Couture out of the harm’s way of dangerous size mismatches but also provide an opportunity for Coleman to compete for another championship belt, a great way to extend Couture’s legacy and bring in more pay-per-view sales.
Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar is a talented champion but his 2-1 professional record when he faced Couture was that much more telling. Lesnar’s size was a distinct advantage against Couture and gives him and the other towering mountains of the division an unfair advantage over the smaller athletes. Even his matchup with Mir has to be analyzed not through the prism of one fighter’s skillset against anothers but one fighters skillset against a size advantage. Regardless of the outcome of the rematch with Mir, many UFC fans are clamoring to see Lesnar against competitors his own size. Like the other divisions of the UFC, this should be provided exclusively. If Lesnar is the best in the world, have him prove it against competition his own size.
The Timing for the Cruiserweight Division is Now
With today’s announcement Kimbo Slice will be competing on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, an all-Heavyweight tournament, an even greater influx of talent is expected to arrive into the UFC’s biggest division. Former NFL pro Rex Richards will be joining Slice on the show and, perhaps even with first-round belly flops from both fighters one should expect their instant marketability to overcome any reservations the UFC may have in bringing them into the Heavyweight division at all costs.
For a long time the excuse for not creating the Cruiserweight division has been the lack of money and the lack of fight cards for the talent. Now, the opposite may be true. Although the UFC continues to operate as a well-oiled machine when it comes to expenses (the Pride purchase notwithstanding), the fact is the UFC is printing money and finding more outlets such as the video games and other licensing efforts to print even more. As Europe and the UK begin to become profitable ventures Dana White’s oft-repeated goal of being “bigger than the NFL” may come to pass. The UFC can afford the larger contracts the larger fighters seem to demand.
As well, the number of fight cards begins to grow. According to MMAJunkie.com, there are at least eight fight cards rumored for the rest of this year and if the fight cards continue at the same pace they did last year, another four could be held in addition to those eight. With potentially twelve fight cards in the last seven months of the year this will be a strain not only on the UFC’s talent pool but more importantly on its most marketable fighters - the champions. To add another champion to the mix makes more of those fight cards more marketable with not only the championship matches but also the contender matchups.
The UFC also needs to be pro-active about the safety of its fighters. As the talent levels increase for all fighters the ability for smaller fighters to use their talents to overcome the larger fighters’ physical gifts becomes less and less possible. These size advantages also become dangerous for the smaller fighters in a sport that is already inherently dangerous. Gone are the days of no rules, no time limits, and no weight classes. The addition of a Cruiserweight division is the last step in cleaning up this remnant of the past. The athletic commissions have begun working for additional weight classes, including an incredibly silly 14 classes proposed last year by the Association of Boxing Commissions, and a pro-active UFC will make the right changes happen on its own terms.
A Cruiserweight division has become a necessity for the safety of its fighters, marketability of its upcoming cards, and the longevity of Randy Couture’s career. With the coming influx of talent from The Ultimate Fighter and the increasing talent of the division’s largest competitors, the timing is now, before the athletic commissions begin to clamor for all sorts of unnecessary weight classes. This weight class IS necessary. Let’s hope the UFC can make this happen soon.
The Texas Testosterone Festival is proud to announce UFC Ultimate Fighter Season 7 Winner Amir Sadollah will be a Special Guest on Saturday, August 15. Sadollah will be coming direct from his UFC 101 bout in Las Vegas to conduct a Mixed Martial Arts Seminar, live interview and audience Q&A with Steve Sievert of MMAJunkie.com and formerly of The Houston Chronicle, and meet and greet with fans.
Registration is now open and is $50 in advance. Click here for the Registration Form.
Advance registration prices end on Sunday, August 9.
The UFC Ultimate Fighter Amir Sadollah Mixed Martial Arts Seminar on Saturday, August 15 registration is $50.
The Relson Gracie Texas Jiu Jitsu Tournament on Sunday, August 16 registration is $50.
AT&T Presents The Relson Gracie Jiu Jitsu Seminar on Saturday, August 15 registration is $50.
All three events can be registered for $125. Registration for all three events is required at the same time.
