Spoiler 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.
*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.
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!!
The three top fights for those that haven't watched them yet. Pretty entertaining. Lioto Machida... niiiiiiice. http://www.boxlinker.com/xViewer.php?vidid=252&vidt=i
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
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!!! 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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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!
