FanHouse MattLindland

We've been handing out our half-year MMA awards, so here's my take on the biggest upset of the last six months.

As is often the case in MMA, there were plenty of upsets to choose from. But at the end of the day, I had to go with Joe Warren defeating Kid Yamamoto via split decision at Dream.9 on May 26 (part one of the fight is above; part two is here.)

Wow. If you don't want to hear a profane tirade from UFC President Dana White, don't watch it below.

WARNING: The video contains explicit and vulgar language suited for adult audiences only

UPDATE: The UFC has taken the video down

UPDATE 2: White has apologized.

Welcome to the FanHouse live blog of tonight's Affliction: Day of Reckoning pay-per-view undercard, where we'll have live updates and round-by-round scoring of all the fights: Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel, Matt Lindland vs. Vitor Belfort, Renato Babalu Sobral vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Kirill Sidelnikov vs. Paul Buentello, Jay Hieron vs. Jason High and Dan Lauzon vs. Bobby Green.

If you just want to know who won the fights and how, check out the Affliction results post. The pay-per-view show and the live blog have started below.

Here's Affliction's hype video for the No. 3 fight on the Day of Reckoning card, Vitor Belfort vs. Matt Lindland:



This is a good fight, but it's also an example of the way Affliction is building its MMA promotion backwards: The way to build a promotion is to sign young and relatively inexpensive talent and develop it over time. But Belfort is 32 and Lindland is 38, and they've both accomplished enough in MMA that Affliction can't get them on the cheap.

But that's Affliction's problem. For fans, this is a good fight. Even if it's a fight that should have happened years ago.

UFC President Dana White says Chuck Liddell has only turned down one opponent in his career: Matt Lindland.

But that's not something Lindland should brag about. According to White, when Liddell was approached a few years ago about fighting Lindland, he said he didn't want to do it because he didn't see Lindland as a challenging opponent.

"Chuck never turns down fights," White said in our FanHouse live chat, when asked if Liddell declined to fight Lyoto Machida. "From the day we bought this company, and before, he doesn't turn down fights, ever."

But then White paused and spoke for a minute to Joe Silva, the UFC's matchmaker. White then added, "Although Joe Silva did say he turned down a fight against Matt Lindland because he thought it was too easy. Lindland was fighting at 185 at the time. Chuck was like, 'That guy is small and all he does is wrestle. No way. I want somebody harder.' As Joe Silva said, Chuck used to fight a murderer's row. He became a star because he fought nothing but stars all along."

Lindland, who fought in the UFC from 2000 to 2005, has been a ocal critic of the promotion since he left, so the UFC has plenty of incentive to spread stories that make him look bad. Like the story of how Chuck Liddell wouldn't fight him, because he wanted someone tougher.

Affliction has rearranged the fight card for its January 24 Day of Reckoning show, with Matt Lindland now scheduled to take on Vitor Belfort in a middleweight matchup.

Lindland had previously been scheduled to face Renato "Babalu" Sobral, but Affliction vice president Tom Atencio told MMA Weekly that he decided to pull Babalu and do Lindland vs. Belfort instead. Apparently not everyone at Affliction got the memo; Affliction's web site still lists Babalu vs. Lindland.

It seems obvious at first: Brock Lesnar has a size advantage over Randy Couture in their UFC 91 heavyweight title fight. Lesnar will walk into the Octagon weighing about 275 pounds, while Couture will weigh about 225. But Matt Lindland makes an interesting point:



"Randy tires this guy out," said Lindland, who has trained with Couture for years. "That's a lot of muscle mass to carry around, and this guy's going to be using a lot of oxygen."

The mixed martial arts fighter Matt Lindland lost his bid for the Oregon legislature yesterday, and it raises the question of whether the ads from his opponent, who attacked him fro his involvement in MMA, hurt his candidacy:

Lindland lost to Suzanne VanOrman by a healthy margin, about 17 percent, so I seriously doubt that the anti-MMA ads were what cost him the election. But it's still a shame to know that we live in a country where calling a candidate a cage fighter is considered an effective attack.

Things are getting down and dirty in the race for Oregon's 52nd House District, where former Olympic wrestler and current professional mixed martial arts fighter Matt Lindland is running to unseat incumbent Suzanne VanOrman. The latest plot twist comes from this video clip of Lindland in the 2000 Olympic trials, when he was accused of biting his opponent's ear, Mike Tyson style:

Lindland, who didn't deny that he bit his opponent, ended up losing that match, and then winning a lawsuit against USA Wrestling, forcing a rematch, which he won. That got him on the Olympic team, where he won the silver medal. He's now a successful MMA fighter.

Matt Lindland is, in addition to being a very good professional mixed martial arts fighter, a former amateur wrestler who represented his country in the Olympic Games, and a politician who is running for the state legislature in Oregon.

But if you'd think that experience would make Lindland diplomatic, well, you'd be wrong. When asked to assess Saturday night's EliteXC Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock fight on today's edition of Inside MMA, Lindland let loose on both fighters.