Ufc 84

[Tom O'Brien]

UFC 84 – 5/24

My picks:
-B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk
-Keith Jardine vs. Wanderlei Silva
-Wilson Gouveia vs. Goran Reljic
-Lyoto Machida vs. Tito Ortiz
-Thiago Silva vs. Antonio Mendes
-Rousimar Palhares vs. Ivan Salaverry
-Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura
-Terry Etim vs. Rich Clementi
-Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs. Jon Koppenhaver
-Dong-hyun Kim vs. Jason Tan
-Shane Carwin vs. Christian Wellisch

Thanks,
Tom

[Doublejab]

I agree with you except I think Sokoudjou is going to beat Nakamura, quite possibly by KO.

I'm also not entirely sure about Wandy winning, I REALLY hope he does but Jardine is a tough striker with some extremely good footwork. Wandys goin to have to be extremely aggressive to take this one, just hope he is!

[callsignfuzzy]

I'm pulling for Wandy. And I think the general consensus is that Penn's got the tallent to take out Sherk, but if he doesn't do it in the first few rounds, Sherks conditioning will earn him the UD.

Outside of that I'm really looking forward to the Machida-Ortiz bout. Ortiz has said he's leaving the UFC, so this is potentially his last fight there for a while. And I don't think Machida's ever faced a strong wrestler like Ortiz, which the UFC is littered with. If he can get past him, I think it'll be a good indication on how well he'll do in the upper echelon of the UFC's LWH.

It's a really stacked card. Seems like they alternate supercards with cards where the main event is the only fight worth watching. Puzzling...

[Southpaw535]

I agree with that, I'm fairly new to MMA but dont sherk and penn have a grudge match thing going on?

[Oversoul]

I agree with you except I think Sokoudjou is going to beat Nakamura, quite possibly by KO.

I'm also not entirely sure about Wandy winning, I REALLY hope he does but Jardine is a tough striker with some extremely good footwork. Wandys goin to have to be extremely aggressive to take this one, just hope he is!

Yeah, same here. I'd be surprised if Nakamura beat Sokoudjou.

[Gufbal1981]

I agree with you except I think Sokoudjou is going to beat Nakamura, quite possibly by KO.

I'm also not entirely sure about Wandy winning, I REALLY hope he does but Jardine is a tough striker with some extremely good footwork. Wandys goin to have to be extremely aggressive to take this one, just hope he is!

I agree. I think Sokoudjou could beat Nakamura if he doesn't go to the ground. That seems to be Soko's weakness.

I am really pulling for Wandy to win. He needs to be the Wandy we saw beat Rampage in order to beat Jardine...

[Patrick_baji]

wandy will smash jardine dont worry...

[Pacificshore]

Can't wait to get there and see it live :D

[slipthejab]

Man that's quite a card. This should be a pretty good series of bouts. :)

[Mehrad]

Looking forward to Machida and Ortiz, Machida is one heck of a machine.

Also looking out for Sean and Penn, both having a good record, im probebly betting Sherk as IMO Penn's conditioning is terrible, he looks nothing like a lightweight!

[nready]

I don't know those are all excellent fights. I don't think that conditioning in BJ Penns case is that bad and he has never been that cut looking. He is a technical fighter, not a meat head.

I still can not pick the fighter in this one I like all of them.

[Pacificshore]

In the past Penn's conditioning has been questioned/suspect. Although when he beat Hughes the first time around, he was in great shape and as you can see here in his fight with Stevenson, he looked to be in even better condition as a lightweight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDSpMs5Vyo

[Mehrad]

In the past Penn's conditioning has been questioned/suspect. Although when he beat Hughes the first time around, he was in great shape and as you can see here in his fight with Stevenson, he looked to be in even better condition as a lightweight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDSpMs5Vyo


Ok you have a fair point! Man, that was one heck of a fight, Stevenson just kept on bleeding!

Your right conditioning isnt always about how great you look, I mean look at Muhammad Ali, he was one of the greatest and a very fit great at that, but he didnt exactly have a thick set of abs and huge veiny biceps did he? :P

[slipthejab]

In the past Penn's conditioning has been questioned/suspect. Although when he beat Hughes the first time around, he was in great shape and as you can see here in his fight with Stevenson, he looked to be in even better condition as a lightweight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDSpMs5Vyo

That first elbow is text book sweetness. Seriously... he understands that he doesn't need to KO the guy with the elbow... but rather use it like a box cutter to open up a nice clean wound that he can continue to work. That'd have been ruled a TKO under Muay Thai rules easy. All that blood streaming into your eyes makes it a nightmare to stand and trade. From the mount you couldn't ask for better control of an elbow meant to cut. Superb.

[Tom O'Brien]

Slip,

I agree with you. That elbow was intentionally done to do exactly what he wanted to do as you pointed out. Not just blowing smoke up your butt. Great insight on the use of the elbow.
I am hoping Machido beats Tito. Machido comes from Shotokan so if he beats Tito, I think he will be making a statement that he deserves to be in the UFC. As callsignfuzzy said "...it'll be a good indication on how well he'll do in the upper echelon of the UFC's LWH."

Thanks,
Tom

[wazzabi]

i can already see Machida in the upper echelon of LHW. his style is just so fail-safe. Tito will be the biggest test in terms of takedowns he's ever seen, but I think he'll beat Tito. i can see Lyoto as the champ about a year from now. only problems is, he's somewhat of a LHW version of Tim Sylvia...

[callsignfuzzy]

That was a damn good card. Seriously.

First off, the Axe Murderer is back! Silva "Wanderlized" Jardine in about 35 seconds. Wow.

I liked the Machida-Tito fight. I thought Tito was going to score a takedown at least once during the match and Machida was going to have to work his guard a bit. Uh-uh. Tito could barely land a shot on Machida, who used is kicks a LOT. He took Tito down at the end of R1 and quickly got him in the crucifix possition for a little GNP before the bell. The longer the fight went on, the more fustrated Ortiz got. Finally he turned it up a bit in the last round, even getting Machida in a plumb clinch. With about thirty seconds left to go, Tito caught a knee to the body as he was rushing in, and it dropped him. Machida pounced, but Ortiz showed off some of his guard skills, including locking in a triangle that Machida barely escaped with only a few seconds left in the round. Machida really impressed me with his takedown defense, something I really hadn't seen him display before.

Oh, and since Joe Rogan couldn't say "rocked" during that fight, he picked up a new favorite word: "elusive".

In the main event, we basically had a boxing match. Penn kept throwing out his jab, which due to his reach advantage kept him out of the range of Sherk's hooks most of the time. Man, Sherk's got some fast hands. He only attempted to take Penn down two or three times, I think, but Penn was able to defend. By the end of the third round Sherk had cuts under both eyes. The end came in the third round, just before the bell. Penn backed Sherk up with some grazing punches, then knocked him loopy with a knee when he was against the cage. He followed it up with some GNP, but the buzzer sounded before the ref called it. However, it was apparent that Sherk really wasn't in any condition to continue. BJ Penn's your winner.

Lots of good fights on the undercard, too, but I'll skip 'em. It's time for bed.

[Patrick_baji]

yeah ahm

what callsignfuzzy said

go wanderlei!

[nready]

Wanderlei good job, nice he sometimes fights like a dead fish. I will watch it.

[bujingodai]

One of the best collection of fights I have seen in a long time. Even the undercard fights were exciting. That Croation is pretty impressive!!
I called all the fights but one, and regardless of that I am really happy with the outcome. Well worth it.

[callsignfuzzy]

A lot of the undercard matchs were exciting just for their near-finishes. Undefeated Thiago Silva got dropped by a hard headkick from Antonio Mendez before recovering, putting him on his back, and laying in some very mean GNP for the tapout.

Goran Reljic was throwing bombs against Wilson Gouveia. He was throwing nonstop LHK's reminicent of Crocop. Gouveia, to his credit, blocked most of 'em and has an iron chin for shrugging off the few that connected. Gouveia had Reljic hurt late in the first, but the Croation jumped guard and did a good job of limiting the damage he was taking. In the second round Gouveia caught him with a punch I think, and dropped Reljec against the fence, but he held on and recovered to TKO Gouveia moments later after dropping him with a punch to the temple. Decent coming out party for Reljec, though based on the performance I'd say maybe his chin is suspect.

We may have a new force in the MW division with Rousimar Palhares. He had a nice backtrip takedown against Ivan Salaverry, who never really got into his game. Palhares secured back mount almost immediately and started setting in the choke. Salaverry rolled them both over, face up, and they fought over the choke. Salaverry defended well, but Palhares pulled out a sweet transition to an armbar that had Salaverry tapping immediately. Rogan mentioned that someone with Rousimar's ground skills could be a threat to A. Silva. On the ground, sure. But we really didn't get to see any of his standup skills in this fight, so I'm gonna reserve judgement, but keep my fingers crossed. So far he looks like a great addition to the MW division.

In the WW's, Japan import Yoshiyuki Yoshida displayed an excellent grappling game against TUFer Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver. War Machine made the mistake of clinching with Yoshida after a series of punches. Yoshida hit a nice O Guruma and transitioned immediately into an anaconda choke that put War Machine out after a bit of a struggle. Again, nice grappling displayed.

Big Heavyweight Shane Carwin KO'd UFC veteran Christian Wellich with a textbook 1-2, knocking the latter's mouthpiece out. Carwin is billed as a wrestler, and if his striking improves he'll be a welcome addition to the Heavies. Dude was a muscular 252.

Sokoudjou threw some hard punches and kicks in his defeat of Kazuhiro Nakamura. He was able to avoid Nakamura's (rather sloppy) takedown attempts. He dropped him at the end of the round with a punch that may have tweeked Kaz's knee; the Japanese fighter was wobbly on his stool between rounds, and ref Mazigatti called the fight. Afterwords, Sokoudjou called out Shogun.

Oh, and Penn called out GSP afte his match. Their first match was close, and an in-shape Penn could well win a rematch. We'll see. I think it would be exciting if Penn were able to hold two belts simultaneously. Of course he'd be the busiest man in the UFC at that point, too.

[nready]

Hey callsignfuzzy the second spoiler tag down here is not opening up you posted.

[callsignfuzzy]

*shrug* Don't know what to tell you, all the info's there when I edit it. Hm...:Aegis::saz:

Oh, if you can't wait 'n' don't wanna go on Sherdog or something for the results, it brings down the info when you view it as a single post.

[Pacificshore]

One of the best UFC's ever, and I'm glad I got to watch it live. Man even from where I was sitting you could hear and feel the strikes that the fighters were dishing out!!

[slipthejab]

The three top fights for those that haven't watched them yet. Pretty entertaining. Lioto Machida... niiiiiiice. :D

http://www.boxlinker.com/xViewer.php?vidid=252&vidt=i

[LightSky]

Machida rules XD so much faster than Tito.
You could see how annoyed Ortiz was getting, think it was the end of the second round he just dived for him!
Favourite fight :)

[slipthejab]

Yeah I thought the same... Machida's set ups were interesting. His double kicks were something great to see. I don't think Tito had any idea of where to go... he couldn't lay a hand on him. Machida did a classic job of spinning off the line to avoid the incoming attack. Tito was clueless.

Towards the end Tito just really got frustrated... what was classic was he taunted Machida to come in and hit him... and Machida did. ROTFLMAO!!! And then Tito was to slow to counter or really respond. AWESOME!!! :D

Though I've got to wonder how long Machida is going to be able to last with someone who's a better striker than Tito. Someone who knows how to cut off the ring and how to counter. Someone who looks at Machida's guard and see gaps in it so big a 747 could be flown in. :eek:

[LightSky]

Towards the end Tito just really got frustrated... what was classic was he taunted Machida to come in and hit him... and Machida did. ROTFLMAO!!! And then Tito was to slow to counter or really respond. AWESOME!!! :D


They both seemed to be doing that, just out of kicking range and the hands dropped!
I think Machida will do ok against a better striker, he'll just take him down - his ground game seemed pretty damn good.

[Rhea]

Hey callsignfuzzy the second spoiler tag down here is not opening up you posted.

Works for me. Can't see anything wrong in the edit either.

[Davey Bones]

Spoiler tag ain't working for me, either.

Anyway...my thoughts...

Goran Reljic made an impressive UFC debut. I was certainly impressed, although the CroCop High Kick (TM) is gonna get old after a while. He needs a different trademark technique ;)

Thiago Silva, talented as usual! Although the call got a few of my bud miffed...

Lyoto was great. He did what he had to do, and it worked! I do agree with slip, however, in that he needs to make sure he tightens up his game. If he gets cut off, that could be a problem. But those BBs in Shotokan and BJJ are gonna serve him well in the future!

Glad to see Wanderlei back in form.

What can I say about the title fight? I was disappointed in Sherk's performance. He looked absolutely clueless out there. And he was totally outclassed in his stand-up game (despite not looking significantly smaller than his last few fights). BJ Penn is gonna be the Anderson Silva of the 155 Division.

[callsignfuzzy]

What can I say about the title fight? I was disappointed in Sherk's performance. He looked absolutely clueless out there. And he was totally outclassed in his stand-up game (despite not looking significantly smaller than his last few fights). BJ Penn is gonna be the Anderson Silva of the 155 Division.

A friend of mine who watched it with me thought it was funny that Rogan and Goldberg were describing what Sherk was doing as a "strategy". His guess was to break Penn's hand on his face, mine was to lull him into a false sense of security, then explode in the last ten seconds of the final round in a futile attempt to fix what he'd been unable to do for the last 24:50.

Alright, so be honest: who finds Machida boring, and why? I lurk on Sherdog, and the consensus seems to be split in half. The difference is, not all those guys train.

Personally, I'm amazed by is ability to make his opponents look clueless. He makes incredible use of angles, and his timing is excellent. For the ground game, it seems like he also has a superb sense of ballance, almost always ending up in the top possition. And he's and intelligent fighter, too, working the correct gameplan for each of his opponents. He takes down better strikers, and instead of throwing the cross like he usually does to counter, he damaged Tito mostly with low kicks and some jabs in this last fight. I remember seeing Bonnar on one program saying that fighting him was like fighting a ghost; he was just never there when you wanted to hit him.

[Davey Bones]

I like Machida. Black Belt in Shotokan, Sumo AND BJJ, goes all over the world to train, and has a unique style. *shrug* Some new blood. I know I've seen him fight before last night and liked it; those double kick set-ups and gonna serve him well for now. I look forward to seeing him again.

Sherk... *sigh* Guess the reality is that his "takedown to GnP" strategy just wasn't gonna work against Penn. Like I said, I think Penn has the potential to be the Spider of the 155 class; he looks untouchable. Of course, if you caught the end of the broadcast, he's itching to move up a weight class, so we shall see how that pans out...

[Doublejab]

What a great event! I thought Sherk definitely used the wrong strategy, his takedowns are probably his best weapon...although BJs takedown defence is SO good. Having said that Sherk didn't even really test it, and if he'd have shot in numerous times Penn MIGHT have got tired...who knows, actually I don't think Sherk would have won no matter what he did but I think he would have done better with a different gameplan at least.

Go WANDY! He looked very good in that fight, I think he might stage a proper comeback.

Machida is amazing, hes taken many aspect of Karate that almost everyone would have considered useless for MMA and successfully adepted them. Hes doing things no other MMA fighter on the planet is doing!