What fights have you watched today?

UFC 48

Fairly low key card this, despite the huge success of it.

GSP looked very good but still yet to have a marquee victory.

Hughes on the comeback trail was exceptionally dominant.

Tanner resolved his grudge match with Buroni and ground out a decision.

Frank Mir bursts onto the world scene by submitting Sylvia within a minute. Breaking his arm and forcing the ref to call the fight off. Mir has an exceptionallly dangerous guard up there with the guard of Nog imo.

Main even saw Ken knock out Kimo with a knee to the chin, not sure why that was such a big event tbh.

 

UFC 49

Terrell announced himself in a huge way by destroying Lindland. Sets up a big fight Vs Tanner or Franklin with this win.

Liddell destroys White to keep his name relevant in terms of a title shot.

Couture continues to defy age by dominating Belfort to reclaim his crown. As a p4p man Couture is so hard to place. Early in his career he was tapped out by Inoue before he'd trained submissions, i can live with that. Ilyukin tapped him whilst being reset which is total bs, so i can live with that. Overeem choked him out in a format where he wasn't allowed to g&p so i can live with that also. Barnett was a drugs cheat which is another one i can live with. Ricco had a huge weight advantage so I can also live with that one. Belfort landed a one in a million punch cutting his eye so i can live with that. Individually every loss of his has an asterixs next to it but that's an awful lot of excuses to have for ones career. That being said he's got wins over Belfort, Liddell, Tito, Smith, Randlemann, Rizzo, Horn and TK. He's undoubtedly a great great fighter. But how great? He called out Wanderlei tonight and had he won that fight he'd probably be the greatest LHW in history.

For my money Wandy beats Couture that dirty boxing style will lead to him shipping knees and getting stopped. Taking Wandy down is not as easy as Tito made it look neither his sprawl and brawl game is the best in MMA so far.

P4p wise i have to put Couture above Saku now. And Fedor and Nog, atleast until their rematch anyways.

 

ATG top 5 as of August 2004

Wanderlei Silva
B.J. Penn
Randy Couture
Kazushi Sakuraba
Fedor Emilianenko

 

Pride 28 High Octane

Heath Herring returns to winning ways with a fairly routine victory. Arona and Overeem both win fights against lower level opposition.

Mark Hunt wins a great war against the freakishly big Dan Bobish. He lost his debut via submission but you can see here he's upped his ground game. He outlasts Dan on the mat and then knocks him out when they restart. Hunt is not a great fighter but he sure does fight great. Love watching him.

Henderson and Filipovic both manage to dislocate their opponents shoulder in a clinch. Never sure how to take victories like that, I mean submitting someone due to joint pressure is one thing, but putting a joint out of joint in a clinch doesn't feel as clean to me.

Wanderlei Silva has a terrific performance against Rampage to win the rematch. Shows how much he's improved defensively. When he's tagged clean he intitiates the world's most dangerous clinch. His BJJ training helps him on the mat. He's extremely formidable now. Tito, Belfort and Couture. Not sure he'd best all 3 but he'd be a favourite for me right now.

I see him clinching Belfort in the off, surviving that first minute and then teeing off on him to force a first round stoppage. Tito and Couture both have to take him down, that involves shooting against one of the best sprawls in MMA or clinching with the most dangerous clincher in MMA. I think he'd get them both in the MT clinch and force a stoppage.

 

This thread will get a few bumps tonight as I catch up

 

UFC 50

Tanner gets a big victory over Robbie Lawler, the fight was quite even but then Robbie slammed Tanner and got caught in a triangle which made him tap.

Franklin won a routine points win to keep his run going.

Hughes caught GSP in an armbar to reclaim championship gold now that BJ has left the UFC.

Main event is Ortiz, Vs Cote. Boring fight which Ortiz dominated.

Not the best of cards but the Hughes v GSP fight was quality.

 

Pride shockwave.

Filipovic avenges his losses to Randleman with a dominant display choking him out on seconds.

Henderson grinds out a close win over Yuki Kondo to keep his name relevant at the top of the sport.

Gomi and Pulver have an absolute war which sees Gomi prevail knocking Pulver out cold with a huge combination.

Hunt prevails in an excellent war with Wanderlei Silva in a fight were both men come out the better for it. Silva proves he will test himself against the best no matter what and did enough to take it on my card, Hunt manages to edge out a victory against arguably the greatest MMA fighter in history.

Speaking of the greatest in history Fedor Emilianenko stakes his claim as the top dog with a victory in the Pride HW grand Prix. Great victory showing a true all round game by Fedor. His striking was excellent, his takedowns were better than any I've seen so far, his ground and pound game is relentless. It's easy to see why so many call him the goat. I mean this guy could take down a tree.

 

UFC 51

Tanner picks up the MW championship with a dominant victory over Terrell. Not sure how much it's worth though as the MW division is shite in UFC. Bustamante left, Henderson left Franklin has already knocked him out.

Arlovski beats Sylvia but in all honesty this shows how weak the HW division is in UFC. Frank Mir is a different class, but he's out injured, the rest of the UFC division is very weak. I mean I'd rank Mark Hunt better than both of these two right now (as in December 2004) and he's barely on the radar over in Pride.

That being said the LHW division in UFC is immense. Pride has Silva and Rampage, UFC has Couture, Belfort, Tito, Liddell. Here the UFC holds its own definitely. I do think Silva is the best of the bunch but UFC has a deeper division right now. Ortiz beats Belfort quite comfortably aside from one big Belfort rally. Quite a clear 29-28 to me. Ortiz, pissed everyone in his post fight interview with Liddell and Shamrock storming the ring.

I'm not going to buy every UFC event in history obviously, but I'm gonna buy them all until 2007, living the fights as they happen in conjunction with Pride. After the takeover I'm gonna buy the best of series and just get a holistic overview year by year.

Right now, my top 10 ATG look like:

Wanderlei
Fedor
Penn
Couture
Hughes
Sakuraba
Rodrigo
Royce
Jackson
Liddell

 

They fought 3 times.

 

Yeah I agree with pretty much every word.

 

Pride 29

This card features a lot of talent but not the best of matchups.

Werdum makes his Pride debut and shows incredible BJJ skills to out grapple Tom Erikson who was once seen as arguably the best wrestler in the world until Herring ended his hype.

Rua wins another dominant fight but against a no name opponent. Talked about how as the heir to Wandy, shame the two will never ever fight.

Kharitonov wins a fight against an over matched opponent as well as does Igor.

Overeem loses against Rogerio but by now everyone knows how inconsistent he is as a LHW, if only he added a few pounds eh.

Main event is a belter. Coleman is one the comeback trail after a failed attempt at the championship, Cro Cop is trying to prove himself one of the best in the world. What we see here is probably the best display of sprawl and brawl in history. Mark Coleman can take down anyone, but here he failed miserably. Mirko somehow kept it standing and peppered him with hard accurate shots until the KO occured. What a great performance this was. UFC HW division is so far behind, especially with Mir out for an indefinite amount of time.

 

Pride Bushido 6 sees a few future big names win low level fights, not the best if cards again.

Paulo Filho defeats Suloev with an armbar in probably the best fight of the night.

Murilo Bustamante returns to winning ways against Sakurai, not the good version.

Fedor avenged his only defeat with a very dominant display against TK. The ground and pound was brutal and difficult to watch at some points. He really showed he isn't just a cerebral fighter, but a vicious fighter as well.

Penn loses to Machida over in Heroes buti struggle to take that fight seriously.

 

Pride Total Elimination 2005

Randleman is now clearly on the decline for me. Started off well but was outgrappled against Nakamura meaning he loses 4 in a row now.

Arona who's beaten Henderson but lost to Rampage out grappled Lister to win his fight and progress through to the next round.

Igor wins but meh, who cares by this point.

Overeem who's been 19-5 as a LHW finally gets his big victory over Belfort and announces his name on the big scene. Belfort by now is known as exceptionally dangerous, but whether the storm and you beat him. That's what Alistair did, ultimately outstrikes him before locking in a guillotine. Reem has only been finished twice, Hoffman and Chuck. But he's also dropped close fights to Rogerio and Kochine.

Speaking of Rogerio he secures another great victory over Henderson by locking in an armbar in the first round. I love BJJ Vs Wrestler fights. Wrestlers have the advantage with position and sweeps, BJJ has the advantage with submissions attacks. As it was Rogerio was able to outstrike Hendo and ultimately wear him down to lock in the arm bar. Great fight.

Sakuraba wins but by now is so far gone I'm no longer interested.

Huge huge result as Shogun finally proves himself at the top level. Complete performance here as he out clinches Rampage, avoids every takedown attempt and even takes Rampage down himself. Then he beats him down viciously until Rampage crumpled in a heap. Shogun proved the hype here.

In the main event Wanderlei has another very close fight, he is slipping now and this easily could have gone the other way. But still would you favour anyone over Wandy? Not just yet for me.

What a card this was, makes up for the lack of talent on the other two cards. Shame we don't have Couture here because he'd have a great chance at taking Gold in this tourney.