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WordPress.com has served me faithfully over the years. It’s easy, it’s free and stable.

But recently, I’ve decided that I need more control over every aspect of my site. If I want to run advertising on my blog, I need to be able to do so. If I want to change some stylesheet stuff, I need to be able to. And since I already have a Media Temple server, I figured I might as well find a good domain name (since jeremybotter.com and jbotter.com are currently owned by squatters).

So, without any drama or tears whatsoever, I’d like to ask you to follow me over to my new home: thatjeremyguy.com.

You’ll get more of the same stuff you find here. I’m not re-inventing the wheel. But I do think that I’ll be able to present everything to you in a pleasing manner, not that 95% of you care about design. After all, most of you are looking for Brock Lesnar/Randy Couture fight information, MySpace codes, and OneRepublic, and two of those three things haven’t been seen around these parts in months.

As any regular reader of his blog (or even friends of mine) could tell you, I’m a huge mixed martial arts fan. I’ve recently decided that I actually enjoy the sport enough to try it, and I’ve realized that I’m horribly out of shape and I get very bored running on a treadmill, so I am enrolling at a local mixed martial arts school.

There are actually two schools I am considering: Miletich Fighting Systems and Westside Mixed Martial Arts. MFS is located in Houston, and of course it’s Miletich. Westside is located in Katy, about 5 minutes from my house, and has one of the finest MMA facilities in the United States (supposedly it’s only behind Xtreme Couture, Throwdown and the original MFS school in terms of facilities).

I have an introductory BJJ lesson in the next few days at both schools, and I’ll make my decision. Right now, I’m leaning towards Westside simply because of the incredible facility and the location to my house, plus the dedicated trainers for each art. Either way, I’ll simply be jumping into jiu-jitsu training for a long while before moving on to the other facets of MMA.

I’ll keep you posted. I will probably turn my experiences into a series of columns for Inside Fights, so stay tuned.

If this site (the official site of the President-elect) is any indication of how this new administration will continue to use the internet to empower and inform, we’re truly entering a new area in Washington.

I’m off to New York City through Tuesday evening for the 2008 version of AdTech. I posted quite a bit during last year’s trip, but I’m not taking a laptop and I’m not sure I have the patience to post from my G1. I will, however, be posting from my Twitter account regularly.

I typically publish these rankings after the major UFC event of each month, but the scheduling of major events on back-to-back weekends in October forced me to delay these longer than I’d like. As a result, there are three shows worth of changes included here: Fight Night 15, UFC 89 and UFC 90. The November rankings will be published after UFC 91 in just over two weeks.

Before we start, here’s a brief disclaimer:

I call these UFC Total Rankings because they are based on a bunch of factors: win-loss record, method of victory, competition the fighter is facing, and the push given to them by the UFC matchmakers. I try to picture each weight class in the same way that Joe Silva or Dana White would, which means I factor in marketability, current drawing power and other things that rankings typically don’t account for.

They are wholly my opinion and should be treated as such. Champions are given top billing because they are champions and regarded by the company and mainstream fans as the best in their division by the company, regardless of the skills or overall record. This means that if a fighter ranked #7 one month defeats the champ for the belt, he will automatically jump to the #1 ranking. If a weight class has an interim champion, that fighter will assume the second position, with everyone else following. 

A complete archive of my fighter rankings can be found here. These rankings are also published at Inside Fights and on my Houston Chronicle UFC blog.

HEAVYWEIGHT (206-265)

1. Randy Couture (Champion)
2. Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera (Interim Champion)
3. Frank Mir
4. Gabriel Gonzaga
5. Brock Lesnar
6. Shane Carwin
7. Fabricio Werdum
8. Cain Velasquez
9. Junior De Los Santos
10. Cheick Kongo

NOTES: Some big movement in this division since the last rankings were published. Couture and Noguiera stay on top, but Fabricio Werdum’s stunning knockout loss to newcomer Junior De Los Santos in the first round of their fight at UFC 90 sends him plummeting down the rankings. Werdum, who vocally complained before the fight about Brock Lesnar getting the title shot he felt was rightfully his, weighed in at 256 pounds and visibly looked out of shape…Shane Carwin, looking every bit like the highly touted prospect he is, finished Neil Wain in the first round and kept his undefeated record in the UFC. Carwin moves up to #6 in these rankings and will likely begin seeing better competition; a fight with Cheick Kongo on the main card in February or March could happen…Junior De Los Santos moves into the top ten with his stunning knockout of top contender Werdum. Santos showed a very good striking game that can elevate him to the top of the division if he’s able to keep his fights standing…the biggest season of movement in this division in quite some time will begin November 15th, when Brock Lesnar challenges Randy Couture for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. In December, Antonio Rodrigo Nogeiura will defend the interim championship against Frank Mir, and the winners of the two title fights will likely meet in April 2009 to unify the belts.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT (186-205)

1. Forrest Griffin (Champion)
2. Quinton Jackson
3. Lyoto Machida
4. Rashad Evans
5. Anderson Silva
6. Wanderlei Silva
7. Chuck Liddell
8. Keith Jardine
9. Mauricio Shogun Rua
10. Thiago Silva 

NOTES: Keith Jardine moves back into the top ten after a convincing win over Brandon Vera at UFC 89….This division could look drastically different by the end of 2008. Forrest Griffin will defend his title against Rashad Evans at The Ultimate 2008, and Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva will meet on the undercard….rumors continue to swirl of a potential Anderson Silva vs. Chuck Liddell bout for early 2009.

MIDDLEWEIGHT (171-185)

1. Anderson Silva (Champion)
2. Dan Henderson
3. Michael Bisping
4. Yushin Okami
5. Nate Marquardt
6. Patrick Cote
7. Damien Maia
8. Jason MacDonald
9. Thales Leites
10.Martin Kampmann

NOTES: The major question in this division revolves around the status of Anderson Silva. The Spider’s performance at UFC 90 against Patrick Cote has left many journalists with the impression that Silva is growing increasingly bored defending his belt against contenders who don’t present a challenge for him. I firmly believe that Silva has likely fought his last bout at middleweight and will move to the light heavyweight division permanently. Silva has bulked his frame to 230 pounds in the past two months, and there’s no way he’s going to want to cut 45 pounds for every fight. The added size leads me to believe that Silva is planning on moving up for the challenges of facing Chuck Liddell, Quinton Jackson, Wanderlei Silva and other top light heavyweight fighters…Michael Bisping moves within striking distance of a title shot after his win over Chris Leben at UFC 89. Bisping will coach the United Kingdom team on the winter edition of The Ultimate Fighter, and won’t be fighting until the summer of 2009. With Rich Franklin declining to coach the United States team, it means that Dan Henderson will likely serve as the coach and will meet Bisping at the conclusion of the show. If Anderson Silva departs the division, that fight will probably be for the vacant middleweight championship.

WELTERWEIGHT (156-170)

1. Georges St. Pierre (Champion)
2. Thiago Alves
3. Jon Fitch
4. Josh Koscheck
5. Matt Serra
6. Matt Hughes
7. Diego Sanchez
8. Marcus Davis
9. Karo Parisyan
10.Mike Swick

NOTES: I have removed B.J. Penn from these division rankings until after his fight with Georges St. Pierre in January. My logic behind including him was that he’s fought in the division before, but it was rightly pointed out to me by my boy Jared Barnes from the Houston Chronicle that it’s been a long time since he’s been a welterweight and the landscape of the division has totally changed…Thiago Alves moves into the top contender spot after a completely dominant performance against fellow contender Koscheck at UFC 90 and will meet the winner of the St. Pierre/Penn fight. Alves dominated Koscheck in every aspect of the fight, even completely stuffing Koscheck’s takeown attempts. The gigantic Alves steps into the cage weighing around 200 pounds and will have a significant size advantage over either St. Pierre or Penn. He presents a real challenge for both.

LIGHTWEIGHT (146-155)

1. BJ Penn (Champion)
2. Kenny Florian
3. Sean Sherk
4. Tyson Griffin
5. Roger Huerta
6. Joe Stevenson
7. Clay Guida
8. Nate Diaz
9. Frankie Edgar
10.Spencer Fisher

NOTES: Sean Sherk cements himself as a top contender with a win over Tyson Griffin at UFC 90. Sherk will likely face the winner of the Kenny Florian/Joe Stevenson fight, a bout that would set the winner up for another title shot…Griffin remains at #4 due to the close nature of his loss to Sherk. Nate Diaz is likely next in the cards for Griffin…Diaz moves up to #8 after his victory over Josh Neer at Fight Night 15 in September…Spencer Fisher debuts in the top ten after his triangle choke victory over Shannon Gugerty at UFC 90.

POUND FOR POUND

1. Anderson Silva (Middleweight Champion)
2. Georges St. Pierre (Welterweight Champion)
3. BJ Penn (Lightweight Champion)
4. Forrest Griffin (Light Heavyweight Champion)
5. Randy Couture (Heavyweight Champion)
6. Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera (Interim Heavyweight Champion)
7. Quinton Jackson
8. Lyoto Machida
9. Thiago Alves
10. Kenny Florian

NOTES: Fabricio Werdum falls out of the rankings after his loss to Junior De Los Santos at UFC 90…Thiago Alves enters the rankings at #9 after beating Josh Koscheck. The victory is the seventh in a row for Alves, extending a streak that dates to June 28, 2006, when he lost to Jon Fitch. During the streak, he’s defeated Chris Lytle, Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. Posted in UFC Tagged: best pound for pound fighter, MMA, mma rankings, UFC, ufc rankings, ufc rankings october 2008, ufc ratings ]]> http://jbotter.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/ufc-total-rankings-october-2008/feed/ 0 jbotter http://jbotter.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/instructions-fail/ http://jbotter.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/instructions-fail/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:35:19 +0000 J. Botter http://jbotter.wordpress.com/?p=962 ]]>

I’ve made lolcats before, but this is my first submission to Pundit Kitchen. My cousin Josh took the picture. As he says, “it’s almost tragic.”

I’ve had my G1 for a few days now, so I wanted to leave a few impressions. 

• I really, really dig the UI. Obviously, it’s not as elegant as the iPhone, but it’s very nice and very functional. The screen looks fantastic and fonts are crystal clear and sharp. 
• I love the OTA sync for Contacts and Google Calendar. I powered on the phone, entered in my Gmail account info and had all my contacts and events downloaded within 10 seconds. I’d gone through my phone and updated my Gmail contacts with all my numbers, and I set the phone to display only contacts with phone numbers entered. It even synced the photos I have for some of my contacts in Gmail to the phone for use as a caller image, including the Gmail pictures that my contacts had set for themselves on their own accounts. I wanted to add a caller image for my dad, so I went into Gmail Contacts on the computer, picked a photo in Gmail, cropped it in Gmail, and saved it. Within 3 seconds that image was my dad’s new caller image on my phone. I LOVE this — it might be my favorite feature of the phone. It makes managing a contact list soooo easy. 
• I actually like the keyboard. There are plenty of people who have complained that you have to reach around the angled portion of the phone in order to type. Maybe it’s just the way I hold the phone, but it’s not even remotely an issue for me. The keys could be a LITTLE less flat, but I’ll get used to it. 
• I haven’t really used the browser too much outside of going through the different sites that have iPhone versions (facebook, digg, etc), so I don’t have any comments on it yet. 
• Android Market has plenty of apps so far, but I haven’t used that many. The Weather Channel app is very well done, but my favorite app by far (as I assumed it would be) is ShopSavvy. I can launch ShopSavvy, click scan to bring up the bar code scanner, scan the barcode and find the cheapest prices for that product both online and in local stores using the GPS. It works perfectly, is very fast and is very elegant in design. I can’t imagine that it would ever be an everyday app, but it’s fun. I also like the Pro Football Live app, though there are a few bugs in it. I haven’t downloaded the video player because I don’t really have a use for it, but the YouTube app is very fast and works well. 

Overall, I love the phone. I do like the iPhone a lot, but as I expected, for someone who does everything inside of Google software, this phone is a dream.

SEAN SHERK D. TYSON GRIFFIN: This one went to a decision as I expected, but it was also the fight of the night. Just an all-out brawl from the two guys I’d least expected it from, with tons of great striking. Sherk’s standup game has improved 5,000% since he was picked apart by BJ Penn earlier this year.

JUNIOR DE LOS SANTOS D. FABRICIO WERDUM: I predicted Santos would win this one, but I didn’t think it would happen like this. Santos knocked Werdum out in the first round with a fantastic uppercut. 

GRAY MAYNARD D. RICH CLEMENTI: This fight was boring.

THIAGO ALVES D. JOSH KOSCHECK: Thiago Alves picked Koscheck apart for all three rounds. Alves is scary good, and he’s definitely the top contender to St. Pierre’s belt. He might even give St. Pierre a run for his money. 

ANDERSON SILVA D. PATRICK COTE: This was the worst ending to a main event fight that I’ve ever seen. Cote did a little jump in the third round and immediately went down with a knee injury. The fight was stopped and Silva won by TKO.

I’m exhausted, but I did want to point something out before I crash. I’ve been reading stories from lots of folks about how great Cote was for taking Silva to the third round, where nobody else had taken him in the UFC. Cote even mentioned it after the fight. That’s asinine. Patrick Cote did not take Anderson Silva to the third round — Anderson Silva toyed with Patrick Cote for two rounds. He ALLOWED Cote to get to the third round. Cote never touched Silva, and the few times that Silva decided to take action, he drilled Cote with knees and punches. 

That being said, I am not sure why Silva decided to wait around. His legend has been built on finishing people, and he’s been built up as a killer. Tonight, that killer never got a chance to come out. Would Silva have finished him? Probably. But the fact that Cote made it to the third round doesn’t mean he deserves a rematch.