You could be right about Babalu. He's kicking a$$ right now.
as far as the stoppage in the ortiz/shamrock fight, there are so many people that view mma as human cockfighting that the first time a fighter is seriously injured in the ring, the UFC will be shut down. Shut down by whom??? That was not a well thought out statement. Babalu is nice, but I'm not sure he is Chuck Liddel nice. Chuck is a great great fighter, and a challenger is going to have to be ready... no one thought the he could beat Randy, and that was precisely what he did. As far as Silva... I'm not so sure about that either. I'd Like to see a rematch with Rampage, but Dana is so slow with organizing shit like that, that I can't imagine we'll ever see it.
everett-there are plenty of people in congress (john mccain leading the charge) that view the UFC, and MMA in general, as a brutal sort of human cock-fighting. given the first opportunity, they would push hard to shut it down. the only reason the fights are being sanctioned in more states now is because there hasn't been a catastrophic injury/death as a result of an MMA fight. that is why the ref's keep a close eye on the action and stop the fights when one fighter "can no longer intelligently defend himself". sometimes it results in what could be viewed as a premature stoppage. my statment was "thought out" fine, it just wasn't explained in enough detail to someone who is clearly a casual MMA fan.
ok... so... As far as me being a casual MMA fan, I don't know what rubric you are using to evaluate so I wont presume that I know more about MMA than you or anyone else, but I feel like I am more than just a "casual fan." Thanks for caring. As far as John McCain's legislation towards MMA goes, maybe if you were more than a "casual fan" of federal legislation, you might realize that fairly serious injuries are not unheard of in MMA, and it would take more than three or four legislators to "shut it down." That is simply a ridiculous thought. Now if you had suggested that at some point MMA might find itself under federal regulation because of accidents, then you might have some arguing room, but to "shut it down" would be next to impossible. You simply can't tell consenting adults not to fight or box in a controlled environment, and if you could find even one sustained example of it in US legislative history I would be dumbfounded.
UFC 61 Damn, another broken irony meter. (If it's so damned ultimate, why the hell hasn't it stopped by now? Have mercy, think of the children...)