Georgi Karakhanyan: Featherweight prospect, Bellator fighterWhen Bellator Fighting Championships began releasing the names of those who would populate their 2010 roster, eyebrows began to progressively raise with each passing day's announced signing. They raised considerably more when the featherweight tournament was confirmed to include one Georgi Karakhanyan.

“Georgi K.” is how he is endearingly referred to by most. “Insane” is how he fights and so it serves as a fitting nickname for someone who has progressed so much in such a compressed period of time. In just over 3 years of professional fighting, he has compiled an otherworldly 12-1 record and has quickly become the subject of future top 10, 145 pound discussions. He hasn't trained for much longer than that either and he didn't originally intend on dedicating his future to the sport of MMA.

“I started getting into Brazilian jiu jitsu in April of 2006. It was nothing serious, nothing like 'oh I was going to become a professional fighter' or 'I was going to be in MMA.' It was basically just to see what Brazilian jiu jitsu was all about,” said Georgi when asked about his trek into MMA. 3 short years may indicate that he was a natural at the Brazilian martial art, but it was hard work and determination that yielded the success story we see today.

UFC: Undisputed 2010: New features and fighters detailedThe roster for UFC: Undisputed 2010 has been unofficially announced via several insider websites, though confirmations for who reportedly will appear in the game have not been made at this time.

Designer Omar Kendall shared details of the game’s new features, comparisons of the old title to the new title playability-wise, developmental advancements, changes to the existing engine and anticipations for its release in an interview today with Gamespot.

Omar was excited to talk about features new to play modes and the play engine itself, while going over some details of the expanded Career mode, Create-A-Fighter modes, and the elements included in this year's game that compound the effort to produce a realistic and accurate MMA simulator.

Go Jets: We're Number One!Last Saturday’s Strikeforce event saw many familiar faces in attendance, including Dan Henderson, UFC Welterweight Champion Georges Rush St. Pierre, and NFL New York Jets head coach, Rex Ryan.

Rex grabbed attention as he sat in the crowd watching the fights Saturday night, which took place in Miami. At a point when a fan’s cell phone camera turned on him, Rex was caught giving the one-finger salute (as seen above) to a patron fan, most likely a guy who goaded him for being there to watch Strikeforce, not play in the Superbowl. As a result, Rex would return to the office come Monday to find himself less wealthy to the tune of $50,000.

The week prior Ryan’s New York Jets entered the playoff round as a wild card team, and defeated the favored San Diego Chargers convincingly. His team was a 7 point underdog to the favored Chargers, who prior to the game, looked to be headed to Indianapolis a week later with what should’ve been a win over the Jets.

Strikeforce has revealed their payout figures for their Strikeforce: Miami event, which took place this last Saturday, January 30th, 2010.

Of interesting note is the discrepancy in pay scales in the co-main event match between champion Cristiane Santos ($35,000 including win bonus) and challenger Marloes Coenen ($2,000), as well as the pay discrepancy for Robbie Lawler ($100,000) and Melvin Manhoef ($5,000). Marloes went on to give Cyborg the most competitive fight she’s had in Strikeforce yet, despite being bullied around the ring by a much more physically dominant Cyborg. In his fight with Lawler, Manhoef was landing repetitiously with thunderous leg kicks before Lawler fed him a fight-ending short hook, one of three he landed the entire fight, to seal the deal and end the fight via knockout.

Also of note is the payout to NFL great Herschel Walker (a whopping $600), who reportedly donated what would’ve been a six-figure payout to charity.

The Croatian Sensation: Ready to meet Shamrock in MayComing off of an impressive card put on by up-and-coming promotion Strikeforce, it seems that this weekend’s anticipated UFC 109 bout between two MMA legends isn’t the only one that we have to look forward to.

This weekend, MMAWeekly confirmed that talks have already begun between Frank Shamrock (23-10-2) and Pat Miletich (29-7-2) to negotiate the terms of a bout in May, at an as-of-yet-undisclosed Strikeforce event.

Currently, Strikeforce has no events planned for the month of May, and has made no announcements regarding one.

Miletich returned to MMA following a years-long layoff, where he refocused his efforts on training the fighters of his team Miletich Fighting Systems back home in Bettendorf, and would eventually step in to coach his own International Fight League team, the Quad Cities Silverbacks.

Van Damme as "Guile": Man, did this movie suck.Belgian action movie star Jean Claude Van Damme, whose starred in more than 40 martial-arts themed action movies, recently revealed his motivations to get in the ring for real and mix it up with an Olympic gold medalist.

However, as was reported months ago as a likely outcome to the push to get in the ring, Van Damme was recently denied his license to fight in the state of Nevada, citing concerns for his health and safety, and also a more strict set of guidelines for fighters age 35 and older.

This coming weekend, 45-year old Mark “The Hammer” Coleman will take on 46-year-old Randy “The Natural” Couture in a fight that could’ve (and perhaps should’ve) happened more than a decade prior. This is of relevance in light of the fact that Van Damme recently applied for licensing and was denied at his own age of 49.

Four fighters age 35 or more (Couture, Coleman, Matt Serra, 35, and Frank Trigg, 37) who are competing on the UFC 109 card were asked to submit neurological evaluation for clearance to compete on the card, highlighting the more meticulous guidelines set for aging athletes in combat sport.

Though he took place in some of the most memorable fight scenes on the silver screen in the 80’s, Van Damme, who will turn 50 on October 18th of 2010, has only some point fighting credentials dating back to the 1970's, into 1980.

Yikes.

EA MMA: Set to release summer 2010More Than Thirty Personalities Announced or Rumored; Mostly Strikeforce Alum, UFC Veterans
Since announcing the development of their forthcoming sports title, EA Sports MMA, expected to debut late this summer on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles, EA has been steadily acquiring an impressive and growing stable of fighters to appear in the game. Though athletes currently signed with M-1 Global and DREAM will appear in large part, it seems that the talent found in Strikeforce makes up the majority contingent thus far.

It was announced Thursday and again reiterated during the Showtime broadcast of Strikeforce: Miami this past Saturday that five more Strikeforce athletes will appear in the soon-to-debut EA sports title.

EA announced that Bobby Lashley, Marius Zaromskis, Joe Riggs, Melvin Manhoef and Nick Diaz will appear on the EA Sports MMA roster, in addition to the other twenty-plus athletes that have already been confirmed to appear in the game.

Alistair Overeem: Hasn't defended Strikeforce belt in 2 yearsThe last three years have been an up and down battle for Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem, who after losing five of his nine fights between 2006 and 2007, turned 2008 and 2009 into his years.

A Pride FC and 2 Hot 2 Handle veteran, Alistair Overeem has competed professionally 44 times by his own age of twenty-nine, an unprecedented feat for an athlete his age, and the sport he’s vested his time and effort in.

Alistair finished off 2007 in November with a Strikeforce debut, where in the second round of his fight with Paul Buentello, he rained thunderous knees down upon his grounded opponent’s body with the end result being a win by submission, and claim to the new Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship. Alistair became Strikeforce’s first crowned heavyweight that evening.

Yet, since his win over Buentello, it’s been more than two years since Alistair has appeared in the promotion to defend his title, instead taking fights in DREAM, Ultimate Glory (a Netherlands based promotion), and 2009’s year-end Dynamite show, where he dispatched headstrong veteran Kazuyuki Fujita by way of a first-round, knee-meets-face knockout.

Larry Rundle: (right) with son Kelly (left)Newcomers surveying any given discussion on the famed Underground Forum, housed at Mixed Martial Arts dot com, need only know a couple of things about the community as a whole in order to truly grasp what it is that they’re reading.

A gathering of martial arts athletes and fans that’s spiraled into cult status over a decade’s time, the Underground Forum is legendary, and those setting the precedent for discussion there often fall into one of three classifications.

You have your Martial artists of varied sorts looking to reach out to like-minded fans/athletes, the incumbent embittered pessimists who do nothing but critique the fighters & fellow members, and of course, your average-going, sport-loving fans. The latter of the three types is a dwindling, dying breed.

On rare occasion, a random member offers an out-of-nowhere inspirational tidbit or two, something derived purely from the dynamic elements that initially fascinated many of us in the martial arts to begin with: stories of perseverance, tribulation, achievement, odds-beating, and just flat-out enjoying what you do while doing it well.

Those tales notwithstanding, occasionally the accomplishments alone of a martial artist in a unique position are enough to warrant the admiration and respect of the community. Though rare, when it happens, it’s worth the read.