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Former RINGS star and the man who somewhat retired Akira Maeda, Aleksandr Karelin is proof of poor Olympic coverage, proving that NBC's recent, poor coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics is not without precedent. Cage Side Seats takes a look at how the epic encounter between Rulon Gardner and Aleksandr Karelin was covered not as a tale of triumph but a comical event.

Anyway, in 2000, the match for the gold medal in heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling, Alexander Karelin took on Rulon Gardner.  Karelin was Russian and was so dominant that he was undefeated in international competition and hadn't lost a point in the previous six years.  Allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs were so rampant that he was nicknamed "The Experiment."  Gardner was an American farm boy with a soft, normal physique who had worked as a teacher and lost to Karelin in the 1997 FILA Wrestling World Championships.  It was the perfect Ebersol human-interest story, and the coverage suffered for it, with the post-production turning a great moment into a cartoon.

JCVD as Guile in the 1994 "Street Fighter." It would be Guile vs. Tommy the trouble Power Ranger if Jason David Frank got his way.

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We've been covering the ongoing saga with Jean-Claude Van Damme looking to organize a kickboxing fight between Olympic boxer Somluck Kamsing and while the Muscles from Brussels has yet to publicly confirm the details from the fight, members inside of his camp feel very confident about the fight going down some time this year. Of course this seems like a year where celebrities being involved in combat sports will wear out us fans, Herschel Walker made his Strikeforce debut, Jose Conseco wants to fight him and is taking photos with fighters in fight camps to hype it up and a former Power Ranger, Jason David Frank (known as the Green Ranger and White Ranger in the spandex-clad, oddly Japanese show for American children years ago) has entered the ring himself. Well, it turns out Jason David Frank is still pissed at JCVD for not shaking his hand at a Power Rangers premier and wants to fight him. Seriously, would TMZ lie? They sure as hell don't fact check.

Jean-Claude Van Damme -- the most badass fighting sensation of the 90s -- just got challenged to an MMA fight by a guy who used to fight puppets in spandex ... all over an incident from 15 years ago.

The guy issuing the challenge is former White Ranger Jason David Frank, who tells TMZ, he's had it out for Van Damme ever since 1995 when the Muscles from Brussels -- who had been Frank's childhood hero -- allegedly blew him off during the premiere of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie."

This is actually fantastic publicity for the Muscles from Brussels, believe it or not.

20-year old French Heavyweight Teddy Riner wins his third consecutive title.

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This past weekend, the International Judo Federation made their first stop on the Grand Slam tour circuit with an event in Paris France.

The French fans packed Bercy with over 10,000 in attendance and were not disappointed when their biggest star was crowned again: Teddy Riner, only 20 years old, won his third consecutive title in the heavyweights at the IJF Paris Grand Slam.

Elco van der Geest (100kg), who now competes under the flag of Belgium after a life long time fighting for Holland. won his first medal in the Paris tournament.

Still in the male divisions, Takashi Ono (JPN) reigned in the 90kg category, his third consecutive Grand Slam win (after Moscow 2009 and Tokyo 2009). In Paris 2009, he won silver.

In the 70kg Woman's division, Lucie Decosse of France continued her stellar career performance. The gold won on the mat in the home country was the sixth for her collection, as she already has the ones from 2001-04-06-08-09.

Out of 226 fights, 132 ended with ippon (58%) in the male divisions, while out of 142 combats, 91 finished by ippon (64%). Seven contests were decided by hansokumake (disqualification) due to leg grabbing. A total of 19 countries (out of 55) won medals.

The full results can be found here. You can watch video here of the +100kg Mens Finals, 100kg Mens Final and -90kg Mens Finals.

The next IJF World Circuit event will be the Grand Prix in Dusseldorf/GER, on the 20-21 February.

via www.ffjudo.com

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The first International Judo Federation (IJF) Grand Slam of the year will take place in Paris, at one of the most traditional venues of the sport – the Palais Omnisport Bercy. The tournament takes place February 6th-7th.

The competition is held since 1971 (under the name of Tournoi de Paris) and in its 36th edition, the event will receive over 400 athletes from around 50 countries and representing all five continents, showing once again how democratic is judo as sport.

The French Team will feature Teddy Riner, world ranking leader and who has just won the IJF Masters in Korea in the heavy-weight, Olympic runner-up Lucie Decosse, world ranking leader and IJF Masters champion Celine Lebrun, Olympic runner-up Benjamin Darbelet showing up in a new weight division (73kg) and other, in a total of 52 athletes. As home team, the French are allowed to have four athletes per category, which is not only be the case for 81kg (3 judoka) and 90kg (1 judoka).

Japan and Russia, two countries who share with France the best results of the first IJF World Circuit (2009) also come to Paris with its full force: the Nippon team will have 24 representatives, while Russia comes with 23. Germany (21), Brazil (17), Algeria (16), Korea (16) and the Netherlands (16) are the countries with the highest number of entries in the event, what proofs how tough will be the fights. The majority of world ranking leaders, world medalists and winners of the previous IJF Grand Slams will step on the mat in Paris for two days of full action and beautiful ippons.

“We had already two world cups this year. One in Sofia, for woman, and the other in Tblisi, for men. In Bulgaria we reached the great mark of 73% ippon, which is high for female contests, while in Georgia the average of waza-ari/ippon together goes up to 95%. With the new rules and understanding of the nations we are bringing the judo back to its origin”, says IJF Refereeing Director Mr. Juan Carlos Barcos. “Even Eastern European countries, who are known for its judo with leg grabs showed that they can really do the sport and win. We are happy that judo is more dynamic”, adds Mr. Barcos.

Competition starts at 10AM with qualifiers, with the final block being held at 16PM every day, followed by award ceremony. The IJF Grand Slam shares US$ 150.000 prize money among the medalist, who also earn points for the world ranking list: 300 for gold, 180 for silver, 120 for bronze.

After the jump checkout a video from last month's Suwon World Masters 2010 (+100kg) finals from Korea. Two time World Champion and World #1 rank Tedy Rinner (64-7) from France meets the World #7 ranked Japanese judoka Kenji Suzuki (67-10).

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