Friday, December 2, 2011

PENICK: Notebook 12/1 - Keith Jardine in a title fight? Really? Pelkey's rank of TUF seasons; delayed UFC on Xbox app

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

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Short notebook tonight, look out for a TUF 14 Finale preview in the morning!

-I don't understand the booking of Keith Jardine in a Strikeforce Middleweight Title fight in the slightest. Jardine's never competed in the division, and he's getting a title fight at a weight he's never fought at off a draw in his last fight. It just doesn't make sense, and doesn't speak well for keeping Strikeforce around. With "Jacare" Souza complaining about being on the sidelines on Twitter earlier this week as well, and a number of top fighters in the organization already in the UFC or heading there shortly, it's time to make a decision on what Strikeforce is going to be moving forward. If it's going to be a feeder league of sorts and continue on, the title should be scrapped and the fighters worthy of being at that level brought to the UFC. If that's not in the cards, is it really worth having titles in the organization when this is one of the fights to be made? And if they're going to keep Strikeforce around, why not bring over a more legitimate fight for Rockhold from the UFC's roster? There are a ton of names that would make more sense than Jardine for this fight.

-Chael Sonnen's video interview from last night with FightHubTV gave the hint that Saturday's Michael Bisping-Jason Miller fight would factor in to who he met next. However, it's highly possible this was a case of Sonnen being Sonnen and he may be trying to garner a reaction. A fight with either Munoz or Bisping would make sense if he's not waiting for Anderson Silva to heal, but really until something more concrete comes out we don't have much to go on.

-Matt Pelkey went back through the entirety of The Ultimate Fighter over the last week for his breakdown and ranking of each season of the show. Looking at his rankings of each of the seasons and how they've fared in developing talent for the UFCs roster, the top and bottom of the list don't really bring much in the way of surprises. The first two seasons aren't likely to ever be touched in terms of fighters having subsequent success in the Octagon. Fighters have different ways to get into the Octagon that don't involve being locked away for six weeks in the house, and the fighters that make it onto the show aren't always the most qualified fighters. Personality drives the show, at least that's been the mindset of Spike and UFC execs choosing those that make it onto the show, and because of that a lot of good fighters end up in the UFC through other, more conventional avenues. Will anything change in the fighter quality level as they move to a new format on FX? It's not likely, but perhaps it can bump up past what we've seen out of the last several iterations of the show.

-I'm eagerly anticipating the UFC's foray onto the Xbox 360, and was thoroughly disappointed to wake up this morning to the news that it won't be out until December 20. You see, the new app was reportedly going to be released today, with next week's UFC 140 being the first event available for purchase through the new system. Instead, it's three weeks later, and UFC 141 will be the first live event. But with the news that the new Xbox 360 dashboard update was getting moved to December 6, it wasn't a surprise to see this get delayed as well. As someone who uses his Xbox 360 for multimedia even more than for games at this point, the UFC's addition to the fold is going to be a really interesting new way to experience UFC events and pay-per-views, and I can't wait to get my chance to see it first-hand.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/penickstake/article_11522.shtml

Harout Terzyan

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