In the Cage With Bards, Gabe Sagman and Jon-Taine Hall

One gym I enjoy being a part of is TorontoBJJ. Of late, I made a couple video interviews with my teammates Gabe Sagman and Jon-Taine Hall. Gabe was scheduled to have his third pro fight on May 30 in Burlington, but he had to pull out due to injury.

I shot a lot of video of Gabe and his brother Reuben for a documentary short that I plan to release before Gabe’s next fight, which is tentatively scheduled for late October.

As for Jon-Taine, he is a jiu-jitsu phenom who faced an elite Olympic wrestler at Hard Knocks 44 in Calgary, Alberta on June 26. It was a real struggle for Jon-Taine to find opponents, so he stepped it up and took a really challenging match. He ended up losing a decision, but I believe he will come back much stronger next time around.

I give full credit to both Gabe and Jon-Taine for the commitment they’ve shown to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu throughout the years. Both are brown belts and both proudly fight under the TorontoBJJ banner. Of course, there’s much more to come and I look forward to watching their journeys unfold from the best vantage point in the house.

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A Farewell to Georges St-Pierre

Leading up to Canadian Georges St-Pierre’s announcement of his impending retirement, I wrote about how the UFC has to rely more on light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. With UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez out for a year,  GSP retired and lighter-weight fighters not drawing, it really does look like Jon Jones will be forced to carry the brunt of duties as Zuffa’s point man.

I gave my thoughts on GSP’s retirement in a new CagePotato article, A Survivor in a Dangerous Game, GSP Finds the Exit Before It’s Too Late:

Georges St-Pierre’s tremendous desire for public validation of his talents was both his greatest strength as a fighter and his greatest weakness in terms of his personal health. He put it on the line for fans, media, and a promoter who were all just as likely to offer scathing criticism as they were to give him praise.

[Read more here]

Finally, Kid Nate from BloodyElbow.com scheduled an MMA Tete-a-Tete with myself and former USA Today reporter Beau Dure as guests. See video embedded below.

Discussing Anderson Silva on The Fight Network

I appear on the Fight Network show Five Rounds to discuss Anderson Silva. Scroll to 17:05 to see my segment on the show:

“Pound for Pound” on Inside the Cage Radio

Listen to me talk with host Greg DeLong on his show Inside the Cage Radio discussing why I selected the five fighters for Pound for Pound, how I got into writing about MMA, shady dealings in Japan and more. Link to the podcast is available here.

 

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New Interview on MMATorch.com Tuesday Night Livecast

The team at MMATorch.com invited me on their radio show this evening to chat about the most compelling subject of Pound for Pound, the potential for a GSP-Anderson Silva fight, my views on the emergence of the lighter-weight divisions and find out what I’ve been up to lately:

Join MMATorch.com editor Jamie Penick, columnist Rich Hansen, and columnist Matt Pelkey for a weekly 90-minute conversation on the latest news in the world of mixed martial arts. On today’s episode, they review UFC 156, and welcome Brian D’Souza, MMA writer and author of “Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts.”

Listen to the show here (Brian J. D’Souza interview starts at 29:00)

 

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