Guida vs. Huerta certainly lived up to the hype and while I presume a ton of MMA fans lost some coin as a result of the Guida Huerta victory no one lost more than Ryan Harkness of FightLinker.com. His extreme confidence in Guida failed to pay off as he was forced to live up (or is it live down?) to his highly-publicized bet with Kid Nate of bloodyelbow.com.

I reached out to Ryan to get his thoughts on the now-infamous bet, the TUF Finale and what can be done to revamp The Ultimate Fighter show, in general.

In addition, we also previewed the WEC card which showcases three title fights and one huge debut. I think this card has a solid shot at “show of the year” with Faber vs. Curran for the Featherweight title, Filho vs. Sonnen for the Middleweight belt and Marshall vs. ARIEL(!) Gandulla for the Light Heavyweight crown. Throw in the debuting Jens Pulver vs. Cub Swanson and I know what I’m doing this Wednesday night.

Below is our discussion.

[See post to listen to audio]
Ryan Harkness – 12/10/07

(Can’t listen to the interview right now? Download this one and all of our great interviews by clicking on the iTunes or Odeo link at the top right of the page.)

Last week, we invited Ryan to The Park to discuss why he decided to challenge fellow MMA writer Sam Caplan to a sanctioned fight sometime next year.

So, it only made sense to then reach out to Sam for his thoughts on the challenge and to respond to some of Ryan’s comments from our interview.

Without question, Sam is one of the top MMA writers covering the sport. His work on cbssports.com and proelite.com is tremendous and in case anyone was wondering whether or not he is taking Ryan’s challenge seriously our interview (which can be heard below) will put all those doubts to rest.

[See post to listen to audio]
Sam Caplan – 12/04/07

I had heard some rumblings that Ryan was going to challenge Sam before the end of the year and he officially did it earlier this week. Needless to say, I can’t wait to watch these two blogging legends to officially get it on.

FightLinker.com and Fiveouncesofpain.com are, without a doubt, two of the best MMA blogs out there (I would even say they are two of the best blogs period but that might sound like a bit of stretch to someone who hates mixed martial arts). Sure, Ryan talks a big game on his site but give the man credit – he is certainly putting his money where his mouth is by issuing this challenge.

Since JarryPark.com is attempting to establish itself as the leader in combat sports interviews it seemed like a natural fit to talk to Ryan about his challenge, how he plans on training for the fight and when we should expect it to go down. I look forward to having Sam come to The Park and respond.

Who’s going to win the battle of the blogs? Let us know in the comments section.

[See post to listen to audio]
Ryan Harkness – 11/29/07

*Fine, maybe this challenge didn’t really rock the MMA world but, damn it, I am excited to see two bloggers fight!