The Rear Naked Choke, Featuring Joe & Ted

Shad Lierley’s toe is fine. Fine enough to allow him to fight for the IFL featherweight belt.

Matt Horwich has the IFL’s middleweight belt and cauliflower ear.

Mario Sperry is the “Zen Machine”.

The three were guests of Joe & Ted on the Rear Naked Choke over the past couple of weeks. Shad and Matt were on the week after Mario.

Shad will battle Wagnney Fabiano on April 4 in the Meadowlands for the featherweight title. Matt puts his middleweight title in the line Feb. 29 at the Orelans in Las Vegas against Tim Kennedy. That same night, Mario’s camp will make its IFL debut against Xtreme Couture, mentored by Shawn Tompkins.

Shad is coming off a now-famous broken toe - the toe broke through the skin. He talked about the injury and how his buddy (and ours), Bad Brad Blackburn, was nowehre to be found when the blood was spewing all over the place. OK, so we might be embellishing a bit, but we did push Shad to bring Bad Brad back east to corner him for the title fight.

Shad also talked about the famed fight of the year of 2007 with Chris Horodecki and said he still would love a rematch, even at 155 pounds, so our thoughts that Shad’s move to featherweight would shelve such a potential rematch might be premature, and hope springs eternal!

Just before we left Shad, he threw the phone over to Reese Andy. Reese’s gym houses just about all of the former Seattle TigerSharks. Get an update on what Reese is doing to get Shad ready!

Matt then came on and Ted hit him right away (not literally). He wanted to know what Matt thought of himself against Anderson Silva. Matt broke it down in his own way after he adjusted the phone (and sent Joe into hysterical laughter) so he could hear the guys. He said in his first appearance on The RNC that his goal was to eventually be at the level to fight Silva. Politics and contracts between promotions will prevent that, though.

The spiritual Horwich, who was reached at Matt Lindland’s Team Quest, recently was a star at the Portland TrailBlazers game, along with teammate Ryan “The Lion” Schultz. While he did not get into too much detail about that, Matt did talk about his hair styles, gave his thoughts on some secrets as to why he has never been knocked out despite taking some massive blows, and his social networking. We asked him to add us on mySpace and make us a top friend, and he did it! THANKS MATT!!!

note: The same offer remains open to all. We’re at www.myspace.com/rncjoeted and we love being in your top friends! It helps the show grow!

Mario sized up his camp entry. The Zen Machine talked about how he got to the IFL. He gave his thoughts about the system, and the MMA world in general.

Mario has been traveling constantly in the months since arriving in the USA from Brazil. It was exceptionally nice of him to take the time to join Joe & Ted. Mario was so concerned that the battery on his cell phone was going to run out during the interview that he made them call him back on a different line! That’s class, ladies and gentlemen!

SWITCHING GEARS

If you have not seen the show “Fight Science” on the National Geographic channel, then stop what you’re doing and make a point to set the DVR for it RIGHT NOW.

Bas Rutten, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz and Dean Lister are run through a series of experimental scientific tests, and the results stunned the compilers of empirical data.

The only down side was that if you knew nothing about MMA organizations, you would think the UFC was the only one in existence. This was an observation made by Ted and confirmed by Joe.

We have seen in the past that the UFC is not above leveraging their footage and general access to mainstream and other media under the conditions that the written or televised piece keep exclusive mention to their promotion. No one from The RNC has checked into confirming that was the case for this episode of “Fight Science” because we really do not care that much, other than to just levy our positive and negative criticism of the show.

Speaking of Bas Rutten, a hearty RNC congratulations goes out to “El Guapo” for being named the VP for fighter relations at the IFL (from “Fight Science” you can see he’s still in fighting shape!). Fear not, he’ll still be bringing his top-notch analysis to the IFL’s telecasts. Now Bas gets to use those endless connections to help bring talent into the IFL and help create sensible and exciting fighter and camp matchups.

Additionally, Kurt Otto will be able to focus more on the ring-related aspects. As the new head of the business side, Jay Larkin, said last week, the team concept changing to the camp vs. camp setup means we’re not so much talking about a league except in official name. Without a league, there is no sense of having a commissioner. The good thing is, you’ll still be able to hear Kurt, Bas and everyone involved in the IFL inside and and outside of the ring right here on The Rear Naked Choke!

More big news this week was the announcement that the April 4 card will include a total of three title matches:

Featherweight (145 pounds): Wagnney Fabiano defends vs. Shad Lierley

Welterweight (170 pounds): Jay Hieron defends vs. Mark Miller

Light Heavyweight (205 pounds): Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko defends vs. Jamal Patterson

We already have had on Jay (”Nice playa, nice!”), and we’ll eventually have on everyone on that list. We’ll also keep focusing on the Feb. 29 card and will continue to have guests from that lineup!

JUMP ON THE TRAIN!

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But first, check out the IFL’s sharp new logo. Sah-weet!!!

Now, back to the show…

Joe & Ted can be hard to keep up with, even for an Army Ranger. Tim Kennedy joined Joe & Ted for zombie talk in preparation for his Feb. 29 middleweight IFL title fight with Matt Horwich. It is the third straight iron fist the enigmatic Horwich will face, coming off Grand Prix wins over Brian Foster and Benji Radach to take the belt.

(Tim Kennedy, after beating Elias Rivera Dec. 29)

Joe & Ted prepared Tim for the awkward style of Horwich by making him as uncomfortable as possible. Part of it was talking about The Spinning Back Claw, which must be seen to be appreciated. Kennedy rewarded the guys with an invitation to his potential victory party in Las Vegas (provided Joe buys the hamburgers). Las Vegas is the hometown of Roy “Big Country” Nelson, who is a man of firsts (and fists).

Roy is the first heavyweight champion in the history of the IFL (see how he did it). He was the first guest in the history of The Rear Naked Choke (well, the first one we had after the name change). Depending on the order of the fight card, he might be the first fighter to successfully defend a belt.Listen to Tim and Roy, and check the rest of the archives for the coolest show in MMA. Joe & Ted run it fast and loose.

COUPLA THINGS:

Shad Lierley is going to fight for the featherweight title on the April 4 Meadowlands (New Jersey) card against Wagnney Fabiano. If form holds true, you’ll be able to hear both Shad and Wagnney size up their fight on The Rear Naked Choke. Xtreme Couture is now part of the IFL. Our pal for whom the company is named, Randy Couture, is in a dispute with the UFC and its owners, with the IFL involvement possibly being an issue in a suit that apparently was filed last week.

The competing IFL team is from the Xtreme Couture camp, which is where the fighters train. The IFL is not using his full name or likeness in any advertising in any way (outside of the Xtreme Couture camp branding).

Many of those fighters are IFL athletes with existing contracts. Shawn Tompkins, the former coach of the Anacondas, is the mentor. Randy Couture is a trainer, but he is not a signed IFL coach like Pat Miletich, Renzo Gracie or Matt Lindland (who always has to remind Matt Horwich to bring his cup).

Shawn is one of Randy’s top guys and a business partner of his. We have enjoyed having Randy, Shawn and Xtreme Couture athletes like Jay Hieron (nicePLAYAnice) and Chris Horodecki on The RNC in the past and look forward to having them and their colleagues on in the future, as their involvement with the IFL continues to build.

(Shawn Tompkins in between Joe & Ted)

Finally, we’re not doing a show on Martin Luther King Day, but we’ll instead do it Tuesday, at the usual time. Check it out at 9:30 pm Eastern, 8:30 Central, 7:30 Mountain, 6:30 Pacific, or 2:30 GMT (Wednesday on the other side of the Atlantic frickin’ Ocean). You can listen to the show while watching Australian Open tennis with the volume down!

JUMP ON THE TRAIN!

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Ryan “The Lion” Schultz and Jay Hieron joined Joe & Ted on The Rear Naked Choke fresh off their title-winning performances at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. They talked about their championship fights. A little. But you can get that almost anywhere, or even from just watching the fights.

What you cannot get anywhere else is what they gave Joe & Ted.

Does Ryan (pictured above in red trunks, fighting Chris Horodecki for the title) really try to look like a lion? Has he ever had a couple too many beers before a van ride to the airport with Joe & Ted? Where is North Platte, Nebraska, and who is the toughest guy from that small town?

Listen and find out. Get some laughs while doing it, and get to know the first lightweight champion in the history of the IFL right here on www.joeted.com!

What about Jay (pictured above, getting his IFL welterweight champion’s belt) ? Find out what it will take for Jay to agree to co-host the show, and with whom he will co-host. Find out his real name, and why he changed it. Live through the gut-wrenching decision he had to make in his personal life just weeks before the welterweight title fight victory over Delson Heleno, and listen as he lifts spirits and describes the origination of the greatest catch phrase in MMA!

There also was breaking news on The RNC about the first title defenses of Ryan The Lion and Jay. Find out who they’ll fight, when they’ll fight them and where it will take place. And listen up to get their assessment of their opponents!

UP NEXT

Coming up Monday, January 14, it’s new heavyweight champion Roy “Big Country” Nelson and middleweight title contender Tim Kennedy.

The live stream is 9:30 Eastern, 8:30 Central, 7:30 Mountain, 6:30 Pacific, and 2:30 GMT Tuesday.

Big Country knocked out Antoine Jaoude on Dec. 29 at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut to take the heavyweight belt. Roy was the first guest after the show was re-Christened as The Rear Naked Choke, and he also joined Joe & Ted in person on the show a couple of nights before his title fight. He will take on Fabiano Scherner, fighting in front of the hometown fans in Las Vegas on Feb. 29.

Tim also fought at Mohegan Sun and pounded out a quick win over local favorite Elias Rivera. He will battle Matt Horwich with the middleweight belt at stake on the Leap Day Vegas card. This will mark Tim’s second appearance on The Rear Naked Choke.

Did we mention Tim is an American hero who is an Army Ranger but somehow does double-duty as an MMA ass-kicker? Visit our mySpace page or go to www.joeted.com to listen to the show. We encourage live participation, and you can catch the live stream while interacting with other listeners and fans, so check it out.If you’re going to be on the road (or at the mall, or at dinner), you can listen by phone. Or you can download any show at any time.

Drop us a note on mySpace or through email at TheRNC@joeted.com!

JUMP ON THE TRAIN!

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