BJ Penn defeats Kenny Florian by rear naked choke in 4th round.
I thought Penn showed maturity on Saturday in his dominate stoppage of Kenny Florian. Penn paced himself and nullified all of Florians offence throughout the fight and when the opportunity was there he went in for the kill. If Penn always shows up to defend his lightweight title looking as good as he did Saturday night in Philadelphia I don't see anyone beating him, & considering lightweight is the UFC's most talent rich division, that's saying something.
My pick was for Florian to win, it was a bad pick. Deep down I really wanted to see Kenny win but in my heart I knew he would come out on the losing end.
Anderson Silva defeats Forrest Griffin by TKO in the first round.Along with everyone else, I pictured this fight being a little competitive and boy was I wrong. I'm not sure what Griffins game plan was (or if he had one) and why he didn't clinch up and try to take the fight to the ground. Silva absolutely dummied the Ultimate Fighter winner with quick hands and Roy Jones-esque head movement. Check out the numbers at Fight Metrics & you can see how ridiculous Silva made a top 5 Light Heavyweight look. Silva's head movement was almost art, letting Forrest connect on 1 of 35 head strikes thrown.
Ricardo Almeida defeats Kendall Grove by decision.
This fight was not exciting. I won't be in a hurry to watch this fight again.
Johny Hendricks defeats Amir Sadollah by TKO in the first round.
I've no doubt that Hendricks was going to win this fight but Dan Miragliotta's terrible early stoppage never gave us a chance to find out if Amir could've defended himself. Another, in a series of recent bad stoppages.
Kurt Pellegrino defeats Josh Neer by decision.
Another boring fight that I scored a draw. Pellegrino did practically nothing in 3 rounds of sitting in Neer's guard. Neer, while active, couldn't put together anything in the way of submission from the bottom.
Aaron Riley defeats Shane Nelson by decision.
This is what should've happened in March. Nelson is not a UFC caliber fighter & was given chances because he is a BJ Penn guy & Ultimate Fighter 8 cast member.
George Sotiropoulos defeats George Roop by submission (Kimura) in the second round.
Roop is another Ultimate Fighter 8 cast member that doesn't belong in the UFC.
I haven't watched any of the untelevised fights so I will just give a rundown of the results.
Jesse Lennox defeats Danillo Villefort by TKO (cut) in the third round.
Matt Riddle defeats Dan Cramer by decision.
Alessio Sakara defeats Thales Leites by decision.
John Howard defeats Tamdan McCrory by decision.
Sunday, WEC 42 : Torres vs Bowles
Brian Bowles defeats Miguel Torres by KO in the first.
This was easily the biggest upset of the year. Bowles has a solid chin and hits hard. I'd really like to see a rematch, which will most likely happen sooner than later in the same fashion as the Mike Brown/Urijah Faber series. I'm still a little shocked seeing Torres on the losing end of such a brutal knockout. I am very excited about the bantamweight division, getting to see Bowles defend his new belt, & Torres work his way back to title contention.
Dominick Cruz defeats Joseph Benavidez by decision (Unanimous).
This was a great fight! You can't ever say that Benavidez doesn't come out swinging & go full throttle. Cruz out wrestled him and used his reach very well. I can't remember the last time I got to see a 30-27 fight be so competitive. Cruz is the first guy to make Benavidez look too small for the bantamweight division. I think everyone was expecting a Torres/Benavidez title fight after this card but I am just as excited for a Bowles/Cruz match up for the bantamweight strap.
Danny Castillo defeats Ricardo Lamas by TKO in the second round.
I picked Lamas to win & he was winning.....until he got knocked out.
Takeya Mizugaki defeats Jeff Curran by decision (Split).
This is the second fight on this card that I picked right but only because of poor judging. It was a split decision in favour of Takeya. I scored it 29-28 Curran. I don't think anyone will argue that Muzugaki took round 1 and Curran round 3. I thought it was pretty clear that round 2 belonged to Curran as well. Curran landed as many, if not more clean, effective strikes from his back, as well as a decent guillotine attempt. I'll take the win because I did so poorly with my picks this weekend, but I don't feel like the right guy won. That being said, I think a Muzugaki/Benavidez match up would be incredible.
Leonard Garcia defeats Jameel Massouh by decision (Split).
I took Garcia to win & he did, but I think it was another of many poor decisions this weekend. I was surprised that Massouh made it out of round 1 with his head still on his shoulders. Massouh recovered well and almost knocked out Garcia with a D'Arce choke in the 2nd. In the 3rd Garcia threw a ton of big power shots trying to end it. The only problem was he landed almost none of them. Massouh hit many more clean punches and body kicks and should've won 29-28.
a rundown of the untelevised fights,
Cole Province defeats Fredson Paixao by decision (Unanimous).
Shane Roller defeats Marcus Hicks by decision (Unanimous)
Ed Ratcliff defeats Phil Cardella by decision (Unanimous)
Rani Yahya defeats John Hosman by submission (North-South Choke)
Diego Nunes defeats Rafael Dias by decision (Unanimous)
L.C. Davis defeats Javier Vazquez by decision (Split). 
Overall, I did terribly in my picks, going 11 for 22 (UFC 101, 6 out of 11 & WEC 42, 5 out of 11).
Bad judging aside, WEC was a great exciting card.
UFC 101 had 3 really interesting fights, but other than Penn reaffirming his Lightweight dominance & Silva's dismantling of Griffin, was not the most memorable card.
No comments:
Post a Comment