Three undefeated teams and the 2006 defending champions all qualified for the IFL playoffs. The team competition was very tight all year and now we get to see the best matchups of the year. This Thursday night is what the IFL is all about, a team based MMA league, where now its win or go home.

The defending champion Silverbacks have had injury problems all year and had to rely on some big name replacements to come in to fill the roster out. Unfortunately, the big name guys (Neer and Hoger) could not get the job done and the Silverbacks had to sneak into the playoffs with solid performances from their longtime team leaders Mike C and Ben Rothwell. The Silverbacks are healthy now and ready to roll against the top seeded Anacondas. The Anacondas will be pumping uphill Thursday night with two of their best fighters out due to injury. Jay Hieron and Chris Horedecki helped propel the Anacondas to an undefeated season but can only sit and watch now.

The Sabres and Pitbulls square off in the battle of two undefeated teams. The most intriguing fights come from this semifinal battle. A resurgent Savant Young steps in against Eric Owings, who could be the most improved fighter in the IFL this year. Delson Heleno and Antonio McKee are set to go, these two have been dominant all year and neither shows any signs of weakness. Fight of the night, no doubt! Vlad Matyushenko will try to hold off an explosive Jamal Patterson.

Let's face it Pay-per-view can get expensive. Fortunately, we have seen a recent trend of airing an encore broadcast of fights on cable and broadcast television. A couple major leagues are doing this including the IFL and the UFC. You probably know about the Spike TV broadcasts but keep your eyes out for IFL on the MyTV network (That's what it's called here in Texas) and FSN. It's taking over the world!

Wow! UFC 70 brought Mirko Cro Cop and Gabriel Gonzaga into the octagon in a fight that was predicted by most to go the way of Cro Cop. But Gonzaga had something else in mind. In a shocking and uncharacteristic moment at the end of the first round, Gonzaga shot out a high kick that knocked Crop Cop out cold. This was an especially suprising ending considering the fact that Gonzaga is best known for his Brazilian Jiujitsu and Cro Cop is famous for his kickboxing. The fight was posted on youtube today but it was quickly taken down. It's something you have to see to believe.

We warned you! We told you it was coming! We have made some exciting new changes to the web site. First, you will probably notice some minor graphical changes including an updated logo (People kept telling us our logo looked like a brain so we updated it a little bit).

Next, we have vastly improved our subscriptions services. Now you can subscribe to this blog and the upcoming fight list by email, newsreader, or desktop widget.

We also added a feature on our subscription page that will let you publish our blog or our upcoming fight list onto your web site, blog, or myspace page. Just go to the Subscribe page and you will see it down at the bottom.

There are a bunch of other changes that I didn't mention and we hope they help everyone use the site more easily. If you have any ideas for us, please let us know.

Everybody is talking about UFC 70 coming up this weekend and I don't blame them. We are on the brink of some incredible new developments and Pride and UFC come together. But if you've never seen any Pancrase fights, next weekend is a great time to start. 

In case your are not familiar with Pancrase, it's where some of the most dominant figures in modern MMA got their start. Guys like Bas Rutten, and Ken and Frank Shamrock. There are some slightly different rules but the explosive action is there in spades. Unfortunately, it's mainly in Japan so it doesn't show up very often on the map.

Here is their web site. They have results from past fights and some links to buy videos.

http://www.pancrase.co.jp/en/index.html

As the popularity of MMA increases, it seems like there is a new league popping up every day. Bodogfight.com is the web site of the relatively new MMA league Mixed Fighting Championship. Their twist on the traditional MMA tournament is a country vs. country set up. So, for example, you might have USA vs. Brazil, etc.

If it wasn't enough that undefeated Diego Sanchez lost an uneventful match to Josh Koscheck, Matt Serra bursts into the UFC with an unprecedented victory over welterweight title holder Georges St. Pierre with a knockout in the first round. I have to admit that it was the last thing in the world I expected to happen.

Matt Serra, a black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu, is much more comfortable on the ground and St. Pierre is more of a glorified kick-boxer than anything. When Serra connected the first time, it didn't look like a knockout blow but he just kept coming relentlessly until he ended up in full mount pounding away at the head of the bewildered Canadian.

George St. Pierre's victory over long time champion Matt Hughes ended up being much shorter lived that anyone expected as Matt Serra took the victory in St. Pierre's first defense of the title.

In a recent post, I posed the question, "What's next for the UFC?". With the victory of Randy Couture over Tim Sylvia, It just seemed like we had come to a climax. I mean, where do you go from there? The simple answer... You buy your largest competitor.

The UFC has purchased Pride, it's only serious competitor in the MMA world. An iron curtain, so to speak, has been brought down as a result of this acquisition as Pride fighters and UFC fighters will now have to opportunity to jump back and forth without worry about contracts and obligations. This is truly the golden era of MMA.

FightMap.com alpha has just about run its course and we have some very exciting new changes that will be taking affect soon. We're still in the final planning stages now but our new changes will make it easier and more enjoyable to find fights of all kinds near you. Check back soon for details.

I know by now everyone is thinking this is strickly a UFC blog but there has just been so much going on over there, that it's been hard to stay away. Now that Couture is the heavyweight champion, though, what's next? The April 7th UFC is a pretty weak fight card in my opinion. The Serra St. Pierre fight is a nice gesture but I think we all know how that one will end. I do have to say that I am looking forward to seeing Diego "Nightmare" Sanchez get back into the cage again but I was really hoping to see a title shot for him by now. Hopefully, that will be next.