By Brad Young
Posted 04/22/2008 at 10:37 PM

I can't figure out the heavyweight division, easily one of the weakest (if not the weakest) in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. At least the middleweight division has a dominant champion in Brazilian Anderson 'The Spider' Silva who has cleaned out the division.

When the UFC bought Pride back in March 2007, the heavyweight division figured to be helped out the most. However outside of current champion Antonio Rodrigo 'Minotauro' Nogueira, the Pride imports have under whelmed.

Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic entered the octagon to much fanfare, but left the UFC after going 1-2 even though he still had a couple fights remaining on his contract.  Heath 'Texas Crazy Horse' Herring has gone 2-2 with the UFC and appears to be on the outside looking in after falling to Nogueira last summer.

Former heavyweight champion Randy 'The Natural' Couture has left the organization and is currently suing the UFC and parent company Zuffa to get out of his contract.  'The Natural' has stated various reasons for leaving, but his next fight will occur in a courtroom and not the octagon.  Not a good place to be for an aging veteran who maybe has one good fight remaining.

Former champion Tim 'The Maine-iac' Sylvia has left the UFC with one fight left on his contract, and has since signed to fight Fedor Emelianenko this summer at American Airlines Center in Dallas for HDNet Fights.  That fight seems to lock up Fedor for the immediate future, meaning the dominant Russian will not be fighting inside the octagon in the near future if ever.

Another former title holder Andrei 'The Pitbull' Arlovski has since finished his contract, although negotiations continue.  However, 'The Pitbull' has dropped so low in the UFC's eyes that his second-round knockout victory over Jake O'Brien at UFC 82: Pride of a Champion was relegated to the undercard and never shown on the pay-per-view.

Speaking of O'Brien, the Indiana native was recently released from the UFC despite having a 10-1 record. O'Brien wasn't the most exciting fighter out there who relied on his wrestling background, but this division is already incredibly thin. 

This division is incredibly weak with no help arriving for the foreseeable future.  Maybe the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter will feature heavyweights in an effort to inject some talent where it is really needed.  The only previous season that featured heavyweights was Season 2 when Rashad 'Sugar' Evans won the guaranteed contract.  However, soon after winning the contest he moved down to light heavyweight.

FULL STORY

By Brad Young
Posted 02/12/2008 at 10:18 PM

College athletics is rich in tradition, and UCLA has done a remarkable in celebrating its 100 NCAA national championships.  You have probably noticed the Golden C on the UCLA basketball jerseys this season. C equals 100 in Roman numerals, just like X equals 10 and L means 50.  Every UCLA team will sport the Golden C this season, and there is a tribute to this athletic feat at the center of the Pauley Pavilion court.

However, outside of the men's basketball's record 11 championships, most of the titles have gone to such sports as men's tennis (16), men's volleyball (19), women's gymnastics (5) and women's water polo (5).  Still, despite most of the championships coming in minor sports, this is an impressive athletic feat that most schools would be proud to have.

Now, if UCLA could just do something about its fight song.  Or should I say the University of California, Berkeley's fight song.  If you ever watch a football or basketball game between the two schools, you will know what I mean. 

Seems that Cal's 'Big C' was written back in 1913 and was adopted by other schools in the University of California system.  Other UC schools that also use the song are UC Irvine and UC Davis.  Cal Berkeley never had its fight song copyrighted, and after a brief legal fight it was determined that the song was public domain.  A director at the UCLA marching band changed the lyrics and renamed the song 'Sons of Westwood.' 

However, 'Sons of Westwood' differs from 'Big C' about as much as Vanilla Ice's 'Ice Ice Baby' from Queen's 'Under Pressure.'  You think a school with as much prestige as UCLA could come up with its own anthem. 

FULL STORY