March 26th was the 24th installment of the Fight Night saga. I didn't get to actually watch the event due to a lack of Spike TV and Roku not showing Fight Night cards on its UFC channel, but I read the results and detailed recap of the show. Another Pride vet, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, was defeated by a young up and comer asPhil Davis won a unanimous decision victory. In the co-main, Dan Hardy was again dominated by a strong wrestler. This time it was Anthony "Rumble" Johnson muscling the Brit down for the full fight. With the card in the books, now is as good a time as any to play fantasy booker and see what's next.
Leonard Garcia: The WEC's favorite punching bag/brawler was on the receiving end of a vicious submission loss to Chan Sung Jung. Garcia is not particularly skilled, as all he does is throw haymakers for fifteen minutes, but his fights are typically exciting to see. I would expect him to have the rematch against Nam Phan that was originally scheduled for this card.
Chan Sung Jung: The Korean Zombie avenged his controversial split decision loss to Garcia with the aforementioned submission victory. A fight against former WEC Featherweight Champ Mike Brown would make sense, especially since Brown has been on quite the skid over the past year or so and a matchup with Jung could be an exciting one.
Amir Sadollah: The former Ultimate Fighter winner had perhaps the best fight of his career, stopping DeMarques Johnson by strikes from the mount in the second round. It was his first decisive finish since the reality show and could mark a turning point in his career for him. His last shot against a top 20 fighter ended in a decision loss to Dong Hyun Kim. Maybe a matchup with a fringe top-20 guy like Jake Ellenberger would be a good marker of where Sadollah stands in the welterweight division.
Dan Hardy: Several months of training how to defend a takedown. Seriously, Hardy's wrestling is woeful. He was taken down at will by Rumble Johnson and was ineffective the entire fight. He's a tough dude and his striking is good, but that might not be enough to keep him hanging around the UFC much longer. His lack of ground game caused him to lose to GSP and Johnson decisively, with a brutal knockout loss to Carlos Condit in between. He's called out Chris Lytle, in what would be an exciting fight to see since Lytle never uses his ground skills. That's probably the way to go with Hardy. If he faces anyone else with even a modicum of a ground game, he's toast in the UFC. The only other fight that would make sense would be if he was transferred to the Strikeforce roster and battled fellow Brit Paul Daley.
Anthony "Rumble" Johnson: Rumble battled ring rust and beginning his training camp at 231 pounds and managed to manhandle Dan Hardy. If he can keep in shape and improves some more, he could make some noise in the welterweight division. He used his wrestling to great success in the Hardy fight and he was already known for having a pretty good stand up game. I would match up him up with either Diego Sanchez or Thiago Alves in order to see if he can hang with the top of the division. If he continues to hone his offense and can learn to improve his takedown and submission defense from his loss to Josh Koscheck, and beats one or both of those two men, he could prove to be a stiff challenge to GSP in the future His size and offensive abilities would be quite a bit to handle if he can put it all together.
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira: Despite what my brother may think, Little Nog still has a lot to offer the UFC. It just so happens that his last two or three fights have pitted him against strong wrestlers with no standing game and wrestlers are his biggest weakness. A rematch with Shogun Rua of the greatest fight I've ever seen would be pretty cool, if just at least for nostalgia's sake and so a Pride veteran can win again. If not Shogun, then maybe Rich Franklin or another old-timer that is not in title contention.
Phil Davis: Mr.Wonderful earned the biggest win of his young career by beating Little Nog, but it was evident that he still has a lot to work on in order to become a contender at light heavyweight. I would put him up against Lyoto Machida, pending Machida beating Randy Couture in a few weeks. That might be too big a step in talent for Davis and if it is, I would suggest Forrest Griffin.
On the MMA front, be prepared for a look at the fighters from Strikeforce I would like to see in the UFC, a possible review of the UFC "Best of 2010" DVD, and a look at the upcoming UFC pay per view.
No comments:
Post a Comment