Monday's Multimedia Mailbag (Road to the Octagon/Olympic Judo))

When is Bas going to make another self-defense video?
Seriously.

Slow weekend for MMA, but a busy weekend for Judo.

Quickly, here is the Road to the Octagon Special for this weekend's 4th foray onto mainstream television headlined by Shogun "we miss your soccer kick/stomp KO's in Pride" Shogun Rua versus Brandon "how far have I fallen?" Vera who hasn't been the same since Jon Jones cracked his head open with an elbow from inside the guard.




In other news, Jamie Varner who's seen a slight resurgence ( though perhaps a bit overhyped) after taking out the wiley Edson Barboza, will be taking on the crafty himself Joe Lauzon who has derailed more than a few hype trains himself (*ahem* *cough* Melvin "no sub defense" Guillard).

The show does it's best to hype Bader in what will be a fight where the enigmatic Machida who though hasn't looked as sharp as of late, still has more than enough tricks up his sleeve to beat a relatively predictable wrestler-learned-puncher-kicker in Ryan Bader. I mean, Bader got caught off guard by Tito's punching game. Then guillotine'd. This has gimme for Machida written all over it.
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In Olympic Judo News:
Gold slipped through 2 time World Champion Sobirov's fingers over the weekend. The Russian, Galstyan, managed to upset him in the golden score (sudden death) with a waza ari (half point) during the semi-finals.
In fact, it was Galstyan that was the first to beat Sobirov after almost 2 years undefeated on the International circuit some time ago.

Arsen Galstyan then went on to beat Hiraoka in 30 some odd seconds to claim gold for Russia.
Click HERE for the match over at Judovision.
Hiraoka had overcome Elio Verde in his semi-final, the Italian then losing his bronze-medal contest to Brazil's Felipe Kitadai.

"Rank	Athlete	Country	Medal moment
1	Galstyan	RUS
2	Hiraoka	JPN
3	Kitadai	BRA
3	Sobirov	UZB "

In the 66kg -
"

Rank	Athlete	Country	Medal moment
1	Shavdatuashvili	GEO
2	Ungvari	HUN
3	Ebinuma	JPN
3	Cho	KOR"

Watch the women's -52kg and the men's -73kg HERE streaming on NBC.