What fights have you watched today?

Yeah he tries handling it without complaining and without taking the full 5 minutes.

Bad strategy.

 

Rampage Vs Hendo.

Great fight this. Rampage actually shows his wrestling ability here holding his own on the mat with Henderson and showing good defence. I scored it 3-2 Rampage and even though Hendo took some rounds with top control, Rampage scrambled well and was able to defend every attack.

Plus he out wrestled Dan at times and obvs outstruck him when standing.

Great win for Jackson.

 

Rua Vs Griffin. Wow.

Rua is seen by every man and his dog as the number 1 LHW in the world. He crushed those who troubled a fading Wandy, and absolutely dominated the current champ (Rampage).

He came over with the intention of beating Griffin as easy as Jardine did and then having a big rematch with Rampage.

But no, Rua gasses after a minute and was completely battered left right and centre by Griffin. Unable to keep pace he continually gave up his back until Griffin finally sunk in an RNC to end matters.

Griffin next up for Rampage, hard to say where Rua goes from here.

Incidentally Liddell is now an addict and doesn't train, he gets battered by Jardine in the main event.

 

Liddell Vs Silva.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great entertaining fight with lots of action and it features two big names.

However for me it's a bit like Shamrock vs Frye, all a bit too little to late.

I don't have anything against these kind of match ups but they don't really tell us anything legacy wise.

Both these men are very past their best. Liddell is about to suffer 3 very damaging losses over the next 3 rounds and Liddell will somehow beat Bisping but lose every other fight of note.

If this occurred in 2004 would it still be Chuck dominating the exchanges, I don't know but I do know I can't hold anything against Wandy here.

So yes this was a great fight, no one can deny that, but Shamrock vs Frye was also a great fight as well.

Prime for prime I take Silva here. The loss in April 2000 made him improve his TDD and ground defence, December that year he dominates one of the best wrestlers around in Dan Henderson. I think any time from that fight onwards he beats Tito, Liddell and Couture. By 2005 his jumps up to HW were taking a toll on his body and then the loss to Cro Cop knocked the prime right out of him. We know prime Wandy doesn't lose to Hendo or Jackson and I don't think he loses to Chuck either.

 

GSP vs Hughes 3.

Serra is absent for some injury and the two greatest WW fighters ever are fighting for the right to face him when he returns. (For me that's what an interim championship is, they shouldn't be classed as champions unless the actual champion vacates).

GSP dominates the prime right out of Hughes. Smashes him in the stand up, dominates him on the mat. Hughes is proven to be one of the best grapplers in history, there to be subbed yes but offensively speaking he's brilliant on the mat.

GSP passes like he's a blue belt practicing his moves on a white belt.

Serra is considered to be one of the biggest upsets in history, will he be as motivated in a rematch with GSP, i doubt it.

 

It's a shame seeing Wandy decline the way he has done. His speed is the biggest thing that's gone and he's more of a tank like fighter now, which is why a counter puncher like Chuck found it so easy to beat him.

I don't think Wandy came on strong enough for me to ever doubt the winner here, Liddell put some serious hurt on Silva here enough so to convince the commentators he was back to his best. The reality is he's just a little less shot than Silva was.

 

Penn Vs Stevenson.

This fight is for the vacant belt because Sherk failed a drug test.

Penn and Gomi are the 2 best LW fighters ever but Sherk is prime and on form so the winner really should be facing him.

Penn is great here. Quality strikes as always and world class BJJ ground control.

That cut through. Can anyone watch that cut without wincing?

Good performance by Penn and the winner between him and Sherk is destined to be the GOAT at LW, atleast for now anyways.

 

Mir Vs Lesnar.

Frank is brought in as the sacrificial lamb for the debut of Lesnar. Mir was a champ years ago but lost his title when he had a horrific motorbike accident. He had a crap comeback attempt that saw him go 1-2 and he attributes that to poor training due to health issues relating back to the injury. He made another comeback August 2007 looking in much better shape and back to the Mir of old. Lesnar takes Mir down seconds into the fight and starts hammering down, one of his shots hits the back of Mir's head and the ref warns him but he continues raining down shots with no accuracy and this time the ref stands them and deducts a point. Quite a lot of controversy here should a point be taken, was Mir intelligently defending himself, did the ref really give a warning. The ref says he warned him so we have to take his word there. As for should it have been stopped, Mir doesn't look in huge trouble to me, he takes a couple of shots but he's working his arms and moving around, Lesnar is just going crazy and catches him where he shouldn't do.

So anyways they restart and again Lesnar takes him down and goes crazy, Mir waits for his chance, sweeps him and takes his ankle to stop the fight.

I've spoken to Frank about this fight, he says it was never locked in, Brock just had a low pain tolerance. He showed me how Brock could have escaped had he been thinking right but that's the problem with facing a submission specialist I guess.

In the other main event Big Nog is facing Sylvia.

Sylvia comes out aggressive and lands a huge 1-2 which drops Nog, again Nog shows his beard and survived the onslaught before taking Tim down at the end of the round. In the second Nog out strikes Sylvia. In the third he gets taken down but sweeps and ultimately locks in a choke.

Because of Randy's problems with the UFC this is for an interim championship.

Let's get this right, Nog is not as good as he was in his prime, that cant be denied. However he is clearly one of the best fighters on the planet. Fedor, Couture and Nog are the clear front runners ahead of the pack. For my money Nog is the best in the UFC today.

 

GSP vs Serra 2

Completely different story to the first this one, GSP absolutely dominated and eventually stops Serra with his knees.

Silva Vs Jardine, they pretend Wandy is back but in reality Jardine is just crap. Silva ploughs right through him as Chuck should have done.

 

Silva Vs Henderson. Anderson has beaten the best striker in MW history in Rich Franklin and he's done it twice now. His own strikes look absolutely destructive and have surely surpassed Rich in that regard.

In terms of grappling Henderson is the best the division has ever seen, it could have been Filho but he's been outed as an addict and has stopped training.

Anderson absolutely dominated him and actually out grappled him on the mat before locking in a choke.

With this victory I think Anderson puts himself in line to be the best ever, since he got his black belt he's basically looked unbeatable.

If you can't out strike him and you can't out grapple him, you can't beat him.

The top 3 ATG at this point have to be Silva, GSP and Fedor. I give Silva the edge.

 

Penn Vs Sherk

Penn absolutely dominated the stand up exchange and on the mat proved his BJJ is superior to Sherks wrestling.

Penn seals his legacy as the goat LW as he's now beaten the next best in Gomi and Sherk.

 

Mir Vs Big Nog

In a career best performance Mir out strikes Nog dropping him multiple times and unbelievably stopping him with g&p attack.

Nog is clearly not his best any more but he was the best fighter in the UFC at that point, the second best is Lesnar who just stopped Couture (I say Couture is too old but prime for prime beats Lesnar) and Mir has stopped them both now.

This is the best comeback in UFC history so far.

Incredible stuff by Mir.

 

Lesnar Vs Couture

Randy was very humble in the post fight interview but he's clearly lost a step especially after the big rowbhe had with Dana.

He was cashing out here.

Good win by Lesnar but he's only 2-1 in UFC.

 

Mike Brown Vs Urijah Faber

Faber is the poster boy for WEC and a p4p contender now that MMA is essentially 2 organisations with WEC being for the smaller guys.

Brown is a failed LW contender but has only been beaten once as a FW and that's to Iminari.

Instead of another routine victory for Faber we amazingly see Brown stop him in round 1.

Scores a knockdown and hammers away until the ref calls it off.

Unbelievable.