UFC 145 is fast approaching, and if you're unfamiliar with the process on this site, I make these posters for most of the major events we cover here on Bloody Elbow.
This weekend's event is no exception, and pictured above is BloodyElbow.com's event poster for UFC 145.
It will be headlined by that highly anticipated grudge match between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans -- two former buddies and teammates turned bitter rivals -- hence the ambigram on our event poster. (Yes, if you read it one way, it says "Friends" and when you flip it the other way, it says "Enemies")
Related: UFC 145: Jon Jones Vs. Rashad Evans Predictions From The Top Asian MMA Fighters
All the other event posters are found on our different Live Results and Play-By-Play posts, but you can also view most of them on this gallery.
Have any thoughts, compliments, suggestions or criticism? Let me know, and voice your opinions on the comments below. Don't forget to follow me on twitter -- @antontabuena.
Now is the time to give away free stuff in honor of the sheer talent of a few seemingly anonymous MiddleEasy readers. Our ONE FC: War of the Lions poster design contest has wrapped up and after careful deliberation and sporadic fist fights, we finally have the grand prize winner along with the five runner-up winners. It's important to note the guy who won the grand prize is the same guy that made the 'sketched fighters' poster. Otherwise, the poster would be a runner-up winner as well -- that thing was amazing.
If your poster is listed below, then expect an email from us in the next couple days and be ready to disclose your address to us. We're going to let the feds tap your phone and send helicopters to patrol your house.
Grand Prize Winner
Runner-ups
Yes that really is the new ONE FC ring girl and her name is Park Si Hyun. I'm sure if you use your expert Google abilities, you can undoubtedly find a plethora of appealing pictures of her -- but we're not here to talk about incredibly attractive chicks (or are we...). Nah, not at all (wait, are we?).
Right now, you're living in an age in which the official MiddleEasy ONE FC: War of the Lions poster design contest is taking place. Consider yourself fortunate. Last week we invited the world to come up with their very own ONE FC: War of the Lions posters, and our inbox is getting saturated with some stellar entries.
If you would like to take part in the fun, be sure to check out the official contest page. Here are a handful of the ONE FC: War of the Lions poster designs we received over the past week.
Remember, you have until March 28th to submit your entry.
I know you're out there.
All of those guys that lurk Sherdog and The Underground with your ridiculously complex MMA poster designs. Remember that UFC: Rio poster everyone salivated over in 2011? What about those two insanely sharp UFC 129: St. Pierre vs. Shields posters? This One FC x MiddleEasy contest goes out to all the hardcore fans that have nothing better to do than to reinvigorate the poster design game in the MMA world. We want you to stop claiming you have the greatest fan-made poster designs and just go out there and prove it.
It's time to dust off those pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop and tap into the infinite stream of cosmic consciousness. We're announcing our official One FC: War of the Lions poster design contest, and we want you to enter.
The Contest:
If you feel like you have the design talent to conquer galaxies, we want you to create the greatest One FC: War of the Lions poster the world has ever seen. If you haven't seen the newly released line-up, we suggest you check it out. The card features a stacked roster, including Melvin Manhoef, Zoro, Eddie Ng, Kawajiri, Ole Laursen, Yodsanan Sityodtong, Felipe Enomoto just to name a few.
Now it's your task to spark your brain cells and give birth to a poster so amazing that it will make every MMA fan across the world shed a tear.
Rules:
The rules for our One FC: War of the Lions poster design contest is relatively simple.
Create a One FC: War of the Lions poster that incorporates the One FC logo and the sentence 'One FC: War of the Lions, catch the action live on OneFC.com.' Don't worry, you can download the official One FC logo here. The rest is up to you.
Your poster design must have a width of 620 pixels. The length we really don't care about, but we're serious about that width business. We're not playing around! Posters must be formatted to .jpg also.
You may submit as many times as you want, but please make sure that all of your submissions are awesome.
Send your submissions to:
PosterContest@MiddleEasy.com
Deadline: All entries must be received by March 28th 11:00pm PST. Winners will be announced on March 29th on MiddleEasy.com.
Prizes:
(1) Grand Prize winner will receive:
A pair of One FC gloves signed by all or as many of the One FC: War of the Lions roster as possible.
A One FC shirt signed by all or as many of the One FC: War of the Lions roster as possible.
A free PPV to watch One FC: War of the Lions live at 5:00 am PST/8:00 am EST.
A One FC prize pack filled with promotional schwag.
(5) Runner-up winners will receive:
A free PPV to watch One FC: War of the Lions live at 5:00 am PST/8:00 am EST.
A One FC prize pack filled with promotional schwag.
Keep in mind MiddleEasy will not be handing out free One FC passes for this event like we did for the last one. Entering this contest is the only way you can receive a One FC: War of the Lions PPV stream from MiddleEasy. I don't care how much you guys hound me on Facebook and Twitter, I won't be giving away any passes.
Prizes will be shipped to the winners within 40 days. This contest is open to everyone on the planet, yes even you. The prizes offered can't be exchanged for cash. One FC and MiddleEasy reserve the right to select a winner based on the quality of the submission.
Now put your creativity to work!
First, we had the regular, plain old UFC 144: "Edgar vs. Henderson" poster, which simply featured the major stars set to compete at the event this coming Sat., Feb. 25, 2012, in Saitama, Japan.
Then we got Quinton Jackson going on a "Rampage" through the streets of Japan like Godzilla. Now, we get this eye-popping cartoon poster featuring "The Answer" Frankie Edgar and his opponent in the main event and challenger to his lightweight title, Ben Henderson.
Pretty slick, huh?
Poster-mania ends tomorrow night when the drawing stops and the fighting starts at 10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view with a seven match main card. To see the complete line-up click here and for all the latest on the UFC 144 event click here.
The world of MMA memorabilia collecting is a pretty shady and borderline maniacal place. The biggest dealer’s name is Brett, but he has to call himself “Otis” as a form of witness protection because he fears that rabid MMA junkies (no, not those) will mug him and steal his posters. As silly as that might sound, eyeball some of the most obsessive people who collect MMA stuff and you’ll understand. This guy would DEFINITELY have sex with Rickson Gracie in a heartbeat given the chance, but he’s not gay. I’m not even saying that in a prison-induced-circumstances kind of way; it’s really just a higher plane of Greek-Platonic MMA love. I myself have succumbed to the urge to buy many MMA posters over the years, and I have some of the coolest ones out there. PRIDE butterfly poster? Check. Card-autographed Ultimate Fighter 1 finale poster? Check. The Joe Rogan collection? One of each. Card-autographed Randy vs. Big Poopy poster? I have three. So when I read that Zuffa was producing a special UFC 144 poster portraying Quinton Jackson as Godzilla, I was electrified. I assumed that stacks of them would come around like most other UFC posters. I couldn’t find one on eBay, but while jerking off to the poster, my eyes strayed to the bottom and found a UFC store web address. I threw my phone that has Google Wallet on it at my computer monitor in an attempt to order more quickly, but I failed. It appears that the UFC only produced 20 of these posters (and charged $200 apiece for them). A cynic might assume that my quest to obtain one of these babies would end thusly, but not so! I am determined to picket outside of UFC headquarters along with all of the the rape victims and chefs until the UFC decides to print more of them. Better yet, if you’re one of the 20 people who got one, please, for the love of god, give it to me. I’ll pay out the ass for it, if you know what i mean *wink*.
Everything about this poster is what is good in the universe. There's really nothing left to say. I never thought I would live to see the day when Minowaman is featured on the poster of an American based fight organization. The Mayan 2012 prophecy didn't take that away from me. Thank you celestial doom comet for not destroying the earth -- yet.
ProElite's third card in the newly rebooted promotion features Kendall Grove taking on the only man that can properly wear red Speedos without being made fun of, Minowaman. Hitomi Akano will also take on Olympian Sara McMann in the co-main event. Let's juts hope Akano's opponent makes weight this time, because what Cris Cyborg did to her during the weigh-ins of Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz was just wrong. Horribly wrong. Check out the poster of the card which will go down in Honolulu, Hawaii on January 21st 2012.
When one goes back through the folders of their MMA loving mind and tries to remember event posters from past fights, more than likely there are not many UFC posters that will stand out in your file cabinet of a brain. You will probably recall visions of posters like the floating light radiating angelic fighter of the DREAM 7 poster in 2009 or the sword wielding samurai warrior of Pride Bushido 5. Although Japanese haven't always been able to dominate decisively in the octagon as of yet, they have mastered the art of creating beautifully poetic event posters. Granted this is not Pride level poster artwork but the UFC does a good job creating a 'Pride' like feel on the event poster for the upcoming February 2012 UFC Japan event. Check it out.
Hey, it's a poster for the new Expendables movie co-starring our favorite MMA grandpa, Randy Couture. So let's see, where's Randy on this thing? Hmmm, not there. No, that's Jason Statham. Who's that chick? Definitely not Couture. Maybe he's nesting inside Chuck Norris' Beard of Power? At least his name is still up there at the top of the poster.
UFC 141 poster for 'Lesnar vs Overeem' (Pic) for Dec. 30, 2011, first creative emerges. Tagline: "It doesn't get any bigger than this." Expect a bigger and better poster to emerge as we get closer to fight night on New Year's Eve weekend. To check out the latest UFC 141 fight card and rumors click here.