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Sunday
19 Jul 2009 2:52PM
So here I sit on Sunday afternoon, absolutely knackered. I spent all last night in hospital with my little girl, with potential Swine Flu. She's home safe now, very ill, but not with piggy cold!
Anyway, what's happened this week?
Let's start with M1 Team England. Logistically this has been a nightmare at present. With the pending fights on 15th August, you would hope that we would have a team in place and ready to fight, unfortunately due to injuries, international duties, lack of reserve fighters willing to step up and fighters being restricted by athletic commissions, we still don't have 100% confirmed team. The fighters I can definitely confirm are Si Philips at WW and Matt Thorpe at MW. I'm pretty sure that Tom Blackledge will be returning at LHW and equally sure that Rob won't be fighting for us this time, due to his fight on Affliction Trilogy. LW still proves a challenge, with injuries causing us a problem... so you will have to stay tuned to this one!
We've also had a change of date, moving from 16th August to the 15th August, as part of the M! big weekend in Holland. Doesn't change a lot, but potentially takes some pressure off. We won't know what we have to achieve, we will just have to go out and do our best.
The coaches and management have also started to think about 2010. We'd like a bigger squad next year, more depth to choose from and more opportunities for domestic fighters. Maybe an X-factor style tryout day... :)
The final bit on M1 Team England.. this weekend was the Ian" The Machine" Freeman Seminar for the M1 Team. We opened this up for the public and had about 20+ guys down for the 2 day seminar. Day 1 was offence and covered a chain of techniques from wrestling, through to a submission finish. The detail was incredible and I know everyone came away learning something. Day two was defence. If you are after a proper MMA seminar, then Ian is the guy to turn to; he will not fail to deliver!
Leaving M1 behind for the moment, Team Colosseum has been quiet this week. Matt is obviously training for M1, but apart from that no one is training for a fight, so the training is revolving around technical sessions and Matt's sparing. Matt and I have also been at BJJ, where we covered some techniques from taking the back. It was damned hot on Tuesday and I think I suffered from a bit of dehydration!
Before I sign off for a week, I'd like to pick up on a hit topic from the Cagewarriors forum. We've recently seen hot prospect, James Saville, fighting for our friends at Caged Steel, facing off against Dave Elliot, experienced BJJ Blackbelt and MMA fighter. From day one I've said this was not a good example of matchmaking and I still stand by that. For those that don't know the result... STOP READING!.... Saville won in the first round. A great result and brings James' record to 1-1-0. The kid has a huge future in front of him, he really does! It still doesn't change the matchmaking in the first place. Dave Elliot is a veteran of the scene with over 20 Pro MMA fighters, before the fight Saville was 0-1. Anyone can argue that James won, so it was a good match, but really... should a guy with a 1 fight record be facing a guy with over 20 fights? What does that say about our sport? Does it present it as a professional and well run sport, where fighters of equal ability face off in competitive combat or does it say that anyone can be matched against anyone and either of those fighters could win? The later doesn't sound like an enjoyable sport, in fact, it could be replaced by the toss of a coin!
Anyway, that's it for a week. Hope you have enjoyed reading my blog, if you agree with my views, great... if you don't, great... debate breeds evolution!
Aaron
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