Sports Wagering: A Blogger Community

On Saturday, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson returned to face arch rival Rashad “Sugar” Evans at UFC 114. UFC betting lines on the fight had Jackson as a huge underdog since he had not been seen in UFC in over 15 months. As many fans and experts expected, Rampage appeared to have a ton of ring rust while being soundly defeated by Evans. Although Evans was unable to submit or knockout Jackson, the judge’s decision was easy to make, as Evans dominated throughout the five round affair. Prior to the fight, Jackson and Evans, two of the best light heavyweights in mixed martial arts and two of the biggest talkers in the sport gave betting enthusiasts plenty to look forward too. Leading up to the match, both fighters were coaches on the UFC’s reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter”. During the show, as has become normal practice between coaches on the show, the chirping and animosity was at an all time high. In the press conferences both before and after the fight, the tension was still high as although both fighters congratulated each other, fans can tell these two men will not be friends anytime soon.

As noted earlier, Jackson was rusty at best against Evans in their encounter. Rather than credit Evans with the hard fought victory however, Jackson chose to blame Hollywood for his loss. For the last 12 months, Jackson has been filming the role of B.A. Barracus in the movie version of the 1980s classic television series the A-Team. Barracus was formerly played by cult favorite Mr. T, a man Jackson resembles in a wide variety of ways. In the post fight press conference, Jackson blamed Hollywood for the loss, by claiming they put him under a lot of stress, and he could not focus on his training leading up to the fight. Normally in UFC similar to in boxing, the fighter’s have several months leading up to their matches in which they are to train and focus solely on their opponent. Jackson filming the movie gave him little time to train and now he is scheduled to go on tour to promote the movie. Fans betting on Jackson’s next UFC match, should consider the “Hollywood” factor if Jackson losses his third fight in his last five matches.

Saturday marked CBS and Strikeforce’s second show working in tandem, and it left much to be desired.

The broadcast boasted three title fights across three weight-classes, and marked the Strikeforce promotional debut of former UFC and PRIDE Fighting Championships stalwart, “Dangerous” Dan Henderson.

Hendo, as he’s known, was a heavy betting favorite going into Saturday night. Most fans of sports betting picked the former Olympic wrestler to batter Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields into unconsciousness. While Shields has tremendous grappling acumen, it was prognosticated that Henderson’s right hand would tell the tale on Saturday night. Moments into the bout, it appeared that all was going according to plan.

Henderson connected with one big overhand right and dropped Shields, but the American wrestler recovered and went on to stifle Henderson with takedowns and a crushing top game. Shields threatened with chokes and scored takedowns at will, exposing Henderson’s woeful defensive wrestling game. Shields went on to win a 49-46 unanimous decision.

It was the action post fight that had most fans of online sports betting talking, however. During Shields’ post-fight interview, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, who fought on the undercard, interrupted the interview to ask for a rematch with Shields. Shields’ teammates from the Caesar Gracie fight team, notably Nick and Nate Diaz then instigated a brawl, attacking Miller in concert and touching off a melee the likes of which we have not seen in MMA since the infamous Hammer House/Chuteboxe debacle at PRIDE 31 in early 2006.

While “Mayhem” clearly bears some responsibility for interrupting the interview, it is incumbent on the Tennessee State Athletic commission to deal with those who would engage in such unprofessional behavior. Photographs surfaced showing the Diaz brothers stomping and kicking at Miller when he was on the ground. Clearly, there must be some repercussions for such acts.