Five quick shots of military-themed MMA news. 1. Kennedy’s next fight. Army sniper Tim Kennedy will return to the ring Nov. 3 in Oklahoma City to face Trevor “Hot Sauce” Smith under the Strikeforce banner, our good friends at MMAJunkie report. Kennedy (14-4) fell to Luke Rockhold in a Strikeforce middleweight title fight in July and looks to rebound against Smith, whose 10-2 record includes nine wins by submission. Smith dropped his last Strikeforce fight to Gian Villante in 65 seconds via TKO, but that was at the 205-pound class; he and Kennedy will square off at 185 pounds. 2.…
Browsing: UFC 152
UFC 149 aired Saturday night to a less-than-stellar reception — four of the five main-card bouts went to the judges, and the fifth featured a Canadian losing by submission, in Canada. When UFC President Dana White tells fans, “Listen, we’re going to have bad fights,” the promotion clearly could use a lift. How does a promotion put a bad fight night behind it and generate excitement? Hand a microphone to controversial middleweight Michael “The Count” Bisping. Even better, hand another one to his upcoming opponent — former Marine Capt. Brian Stann. That happened late Saturday night/early Sunday morning on the…
On its surface, it’s the typical trash talk that surrounds UFC matchmaking: Middleweight Michael “The Count” Bisping lists Brian Stann as one of his preferred opponents for a September pay-per-view fight, and the former Marine captain fires back. And as such, it might be overshadowed by Saturday’s Chael Sonnen-Anderson Silva middleweight title fight. But what’s really happened here? On July 4, an English fighter nicknamed “The Count” threw out a challenge that a former Marine nicknamed “The All-American” accepted. Did Bisping pick Independence Day — or, as he and fellow Brits call it, “Wednesday” — on purpose? Probably not. But…