UFC 135 was last Saturday, and it was not a particularly exciting night of fights. Two really bad heavyweight fights in the middle of the main card sapped all the livelihood out of the night, especially coming after Nate Diaz’s first round destruction of Takanori Gomi. Even Koscheck’s likely ending of Matt Hughes’ career and Jon Jones’ clinical destruction of Rampage Jackson couldn’t really pump enough life into this card to make it memorable. Also, Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg were absolutely insipid on commentary. It was possibly the worst I’ve ever heard from them, and that’s saying something.
It started early, when Gomi winged a hook and slipped on the mat and fell, without a blow even coming near him. Rogan then proceeded to yell, “he’s rocked!” even though it was just a slip. There was more in this fight, which I’ll get to when I discuss Nate Diaz. During the Mark Hunt-Ben Rothwell tilt, Rogan lost his mind over a gassed Hunt putting an armbar on a gassed Rothwell like it was Nogueira submitting Bob Sapp. Then, while both men wheezed their way through limp punches and tired takedowns, Goldie and Rogan talked it up like it was the fight of the year. Their commentary during Jones-Jackson was also dreadful, as even though Jones was impressive, they made him out to be the lovechild of Thor and Anderson Silva. More on this in the Jones part of this entry. So now, lets get to it.
Nate Diaz: Diaz looked great in his return to the lightweight division, absolutely wrecking Gomi. I can’t tell if that was due to Diaz really improving that much since I last saw him or the fact that he had a huge reach advantage and Gomi has essentially been done as a fighter for years. Either way, his striking was crisp and his grappling looked good as well. These things have never been his problem. That would be defending the takedown and stopping wrestlers. This fight didn’t show if he has improved in that way. He is probably a fringe top 10 lightweight and a match with a top 10 fighter like Jim Miller could go a long ways towards determining whether or not Diaz should be in the title hunt in the next year or two. Right now he is behind Melvin Guillard and the winner of Ben Henderson-Clay Guida, as well as Strikeforce’s Gilbert Melendez, so a Miller fight would really establish him in the contender bracket.
Travis Browne: Browne looked utterly unimpressive in a win over the unknown Rob Broughton. Prior to the fight, he was receiving the Zuffa hype as someone to watch. Instead, he showed the massive gulf between the top of the division and everyone else. He is clearly not ready for anyone of actual importance (and I would argue that was obvious in his prior fights with Struve and Kongo as well), so I would say either set him up against the winner of Roy Nelson-Mirko Cro Cop, Mark Hunt, or Matt Mitrione should he beat Cheick Kongo. I think Mitrione would be best, as a fight between those two would actually move someone up the heavyweight ladder, whereas the other two are more water treading fights for has beens or guys the UFC want to push by beating recognizable names. Based on his performance on Saturday, Browne needs a real fight against another prospect to determine how much skill he really has and not an easy win over a name to push him into the title picture (hello, Brendan Schaub!).
Mark Hunt: Hunt somehow lasted through all three rounds and won a decision over Ben Rothwell in a fight that should have been stopped when Big Ben had to be carried to his corner between rounds because he was so gassed he couldn’t move. If you can’t walk to your corner on your own free will, you’re done and the fight should be over. I digress, however. Hunt somehow ended up being the guy with better cardio and improved his record to 7-7. He is not a contender and so he shouldn’t be treated as such. I think that he should fight the winner of Roy Nelson-Mirko Cro Cop. If it’s Nelson, it lets two fat guys have another slugfest that I think Hunt has enough power to win by knockout or Nelson could get to the ground and win by submission. If it is Cro Cop, it gives Mirko the chance to avenge his losses to Hunt in K-1 and PRIDE. Another option is putting him in against Brendan Schaub, as he is a slow moving enough target for Schaub to pick at and re-establish himself against. He also has enough punching power to test Schaub’s chin and make him learn some striking defense.
Matt Hughes: Retirement, like it should have been after BJ Penn blasted him last year. Despite Rogan and Goldie raving about Hughes’ improved striking and how he was taking it to Koscheck fight, there was no improvement and Hughes is still owner of some of the worst striking I have ever seen. It’s Jake Shields level terrible. Hughes was wobbly the whole round against Koscheck and couldn’t really block any strikes, nor absorb them particularly well. He was not particularly competitive in the fight and really should not do this anymore. There’s no shame in losing to Koscheck, a man whose last fight was for the title, but its clear that Hughes just doesn’t have “it” anymore.
Josh Koscheck: He didn’t get a lot of love from the announce crew, but Kos looked pretty good coming in after an injury layoff and on two weeks notice. Granted it was against someone he should beat, but he did it efficiently and without a scratch. More surprising was how gracious he was in his post-fight interview, a rarity for him that deserves a mention. He’s in a weird position in the division, as he is now a gatekeeper. He would have to crush some people to get another title shot and even then I wouldn’t give him much of a shot against GSP. Unless he is moving up in weight like he suggested, I think that if both GSP and BJ Penn win at UFC 137 that he should go against Penn. Otherwise, a match with Thiago Alves might make sense. It would pit two top ten guys who aren’t really near a title shot against each other in a rematch of a fight where Kos came in on short notice and lost a decision a few years ago.
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson: Rampage showed some decent striking defense and takedown defense against Jones, but that was about it. He didn’t really land any significant strikes and proved to be too slow and short of range to compete against the champ. He requested Shogun Rua for the UFC’s Japan card early next year, and I’m inclined to go for that fight. If Shogun doesn’t get hurt against Hendo in November, then the UFC should go with it. It’s a nice PRIDE throwback for the Japanese fans and would be a thrilling slugfest. Win or lose for Rua, they should do this fight because I would not give Shogun a chance in a rematch against Jones if they were to lock up again in the next year. If Shogun is unavailable, I think a fight with Rich Franklin or Little Nogueira would be the best, as they all like to mix it up and throw strikes. Rampage’s style is based on brawling and he hasn’t been against anyone that showcases that skill since he fought Jardine two years ago. Part of this is Jackson’s fault for being stagnant and too slow at this stage to force brawls, but part of it is that the UFC has put him up against guys who lay and pray (Rashad, Matt Hamill) or use distance and counterpunching (machida and Jones). Rampage needs a brawl to resolidify himself in the eyes of fans, as a pay per view draw for the company, and regain the luster he had from knocking out Liddell and Wanderlei.
Jon Jones: Jonny Bones turned in an efficient, workmanlike performance in his dominating win over Rampage. Still, despite what Rogan and Goldie were saying, it was not a perfect win by any means. On the positive front, he combined the strategies used by Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans to win. He used leg kicks to cripple Rampage’s lead leg and clinch grappling to tire him out. He also used his superior range and speed to avoid any damaging blows. It was a victory that was on par with GSP’s one sided beating of BJ Penn a few years back. Now that I think of it, I am going to write something up in the next week or two comparing that fight with the Jones one. Now, for the negative.
For starters, it was not “flawless” like Rogan gushed or “Anderson Silva like,” as Goldie put it. Rampage managed to avoid a lot of Jones’ strikes and blocked a lot of the headkicks that Rogan was going nuts over. Rampage also stuffed all but two takedowns. If he wasn’t so slow and lacking in range, he could have punished Jones for these things. As for the Silva comparison, its absurd. Silva’s striking may as well be laser guided, its so precise and deadly. Jones has very good and unique striking, but it isn’t on par with that of Anderson’s. No one’s is. Also, Jones turned his back and ran away from more than one exchange and Silva doesn’t do that. Running is weak, and the announcers never even called him on it. Second, Jones fights cheap. In the first round, he kneed Rampage in the nuts twice and neither he nor the ref stopped. At the end of the third, he and Rampage were tangled up and Jones tossed him to the mat a couple of seconds after the bell rang. Goldie called it a “diss;” I call it cheating. He also threw push kicks to the knee cap, which are legal but dickish (even when Anderson does them, I don’t approve).
Part of the reason Jones is so dominant, a large part really, is that he is huge for a light heavyweight. I’m not going to get into detail here, as my brother already did so in an excellent blog post earlier this week. I’m just going to use it as a segue into his next opponent, which has already been announced as Rashad Evans. He is going to use that massive advantage in conjunction with Greg Jackson’s game planning and experience training Rashad to beat a hole into him. Rashad may be fast enough to avoid some of the things that got Rampage and Shogun into trouble, but he is not big or strong enough to stop Jones. Lyoto Machida has the best chance to do so, as he is really the only fighter in the division that can force Jones to fight his style and not the way that Jonny Bones would like to.
That does it for this post. UFC 136 is in 10 days (!?!?). Expect predictions soon, as well as a couple of other posts I have done or will have done soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment