Monday, September 27, 2010

UFC 119: A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action Please






4 fights going to decision. Probably the worst main event in a long time for a UFC event. A controversial end to an unbeaten start to a career. At least three fights almost devoid of action and dangerous situations for the fighters. Joe Rogan apologizing in the middle of the main event and basically calling the two fighters out for not fighting.
Dana White can spin this any way he chooses: This was a bad night for the UFC.

The main event, which saw heavyweight gatekeeper Frank Mir take on Mirko Cro Cop, ended up being the worst slow dance on any fight card. Mir’s strategy, albeit a smart one, was to attack quickly in tight, and use his superior size – a phrase I’ll probably never use to describe Mir at the heavyweight level again – to muscle Cro Cop against the fence for takedowns.

Too bad the takedowns never happened, and neither man could land any clean shots. Add in the fact that Cro Cop never took a risk and only threw a handful of kicks (possible overstatement: I only remember one, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt), and you had a masterful jiu-jitsu artist and a heavy striker spending most of the 14-minute bout groping each other. Even a flash KO via knee by Mir couldn’t save this stinker of a main event.

Sadly, this may start to spell the end for Cro Cop, one of the most feared strikers in MMA history. For Mir, all this fight showed is that he can fight a smart fight and beat someone who's not on his level in terms of overall skill or size - but the minute he goes back up the heavyweight ladder, the beasts at the top will probably smack him right back down.

Bookending UFC with a snoozefest at each end, Melvin Guillard and Jeremy Stephens lived up to exactly zero of the hype they pushed. Guillard stayed on the outside and landed ineffective shots for most of the fight, and Stephens, save for a right at the beginning of the fight and a hook to the body in the 3rd, didn’t have the speed to keep up with him. Guillard took the split decision, setting up the night from the get-go.

Out of the five fights, Sean Sherk vs. Evan Dunham was easily the most entertaining, and also displayed the most of what MMA normally has to offer. Sherk had excellent takedowns for the first half of the fight, seemingly taking down Dunham at will. Dunham, to his credit, worked the guillotine choke during the takedown attempts, causing announcer Mike Goldberg to almost call the fight over in what’s sure to be remembered forever on YouTube. However, Dunham couldn’t put away Sherk with the submission, and eventually went to a very effective striking game for most of the second and third rounds.

Unforunately, the judges saw the cut that Sherk opened up on Dunham early in the fight and must hate blood, because they gave Sherk the split decision even with a significant advantage in submission attempts and striking to Dunham. It really was a sad way for an undefeated streak to end, and though Sherk didn’t deserve the boos at the end of the fight, the fans certainly had the right to be upset about the decision.

In what was the most confusing of the bouts on the card, Matt Serra decided that it was a good idea to stand toe-to-toe and trade punches… with a former Indiana state boxing champ in Chris Lytle. While it certainly takes guts to be punched by someone who has an advantage in the striking game, the fact that Serra threw very few kicks nor attempted many takedowns (once again, if at all) seemed like a serious lack of good fight planning by him and his corner. Lytle easily took the decision, since he seemingly ran out of gas and couldn’t put Serra away.

Ryan Bader and Rogerio Nogueira followed up with a co-main where Bader got stuffed on seemingly 2 out of every 3 takedown attempts, but “Little Nog” couldn’t make him pay for it. Even when Bader got him to the ground, only once did he do any damage after the takedown, and Nogueira couldn’t get his striking game together in fear of the takedown. Bader in a very unentertaining decision.

At the end of the “event” – which concluded, quite appropriately with the crowd booing for half of the main event – UFC President Dana White tried to explain away that the fans had unreasonable expectations for the card, and that every fight can’t be a crazy train wreck.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable, however, for the top MMA promotion in the world to display better than the ineffectual mess that passed for a monthly PPV.

Oh well, better luck next month when Lesnar jumps back in the octagon. At least he finishes his fights.

~ David

1 comment:

  1. Haha troll! I'm going to take this as a real post however and invite you to expand upon that thought for some real discussion.

    ReplyDelete