What fights have you watched today?

Velasquez vs Dos Santos 1

What a shot by JDS. Cain looked set to be the goat but now JDS puts himself in contention with one huge punch.

These two are excellent fighters, not quite Fedor, Nog and Cro Cop but definitely the next level. (as of 2011 anyways)

 

Congo vs Barry

Wow probably the best round of MMA I've ever seen.

 

Lesnar Overeem

What a brutal beat down. Overeem has two tremendous back to back victories in Werdum and now Lesnar putting his name down as one of the most deadly strikers in the HW division. As a HW the only man to beat him is Kharitonov who he's 1-1 with.

 

Rua vs Jones

One sided beat down by the upcoming challenger. Jones is essentially unbeaten at this point and he fought with supreme confidence as he completely out struck Rua from range and forced a stoppage.

 

Jones vs Rampage

With this victory Jones established himself as probably the best LHW ever. Dominating Bader, Rua and now Page. Jones looks incredibly dominant and it's hard imagining anyone beating him with his ground and standing game.

 

Mir vs Nogueira 2

Frank Mir shows great BJJ skills here. He was being out struck and hurt badly but managed to sweep into side control and isolate the arm. Nog rolled him but Mir kept the momentum going to roll him again before locking in the Kimura.

Mir is a great HW for me. Never truly the same after his bike accident but his flashes of brilliance show what a great fighter he was.

Without that injury I'm sure he'd have tapped Arlovski and any of the other mediocre HW fighters that existed pre Lesnar.

 

Ortiz vs Bader.

Big victory for Ortiz this as he's been on a 5 year winless streak a day was against a young up and coming opponent but he hurt him midway through the first round and then finished him with a tight guillotine.

 

Evans vs Ortiz rematch.

Evans dominated this time there was no close fight here but even then Ortiz almost stole victory with a guillotine but Evans didn't panic and managed to free his head before continuing the domination and forcing a stoppage.

 

Machida vs Couture.

Lyoto scores a big victory here with a beautiful crane kick that ends it in brutal fashion.

 

Jones vs Machida.

Very competitive fight and at times Machida for the better of the stand up and was able to tag and hurt Jones.

But Jones hits him, hurts him and locks in a standing guillotine which knocks him unconscious.

With this win Jones puts himself in the mix of those considered to be goat.

 

Rua vs Griffin 2

Rua shows the first fight was an anomaly as he smashes through Griffin like a knife through hot butter.

 

Henderson was thoroughly beaten by Shields who staked his claim as a bona-fide ATG that night.

Since then Henderson has stopped Babalu and Calvalcante both in impressive fashion.

The Babalu win was not too dissimilar to the Bisping KO where he threw a sickening diving right hand, Feijao gave him so rough moments before he ended matters with the HW Bomb. But his biggest of the three victories since his move back to LHW was undoubtedly the Fedor fight.

Don't get me wrong, Fedor was past his best but Henderson himself was 40 and he's a natural MW fighter. Remember the only men to beat him at MW are Misaki (who he went 1-1) with, Silva and Shields. Here against Fedor he had the better of the clinch game for most of the fight, Fedor landed a big punch which sent him scrambling, as Fedor dived in for the kill Hendo did a beautiful deep roll and landed a punch perfect uppercut from back side which knocked Fedor clean out.

Silva straight up beat down on Fedor but against Werdum and Hendo his own greed cost him dearly.

But at the age of 40 Hendo has revealed invented himself as a huge punching tank like fighter and he comes over to the UFC to face a back on form Rua.

 

Silva vs Emilianenko

If any fight proves Fedor is past his best its this.

As I said he made two huge mistakes against Werdum and Hendo in fights that were winnable for him, but here he was just smashed brutally until the stoppage.

People pretend it's because his opposition got harder but that's rubbish.

Silva brings nothing that he hasn't faced before but after a long career both amateur and professional it's clearly taken its toll on the last emperor.

I know this fight was before the Hendo one, I just watched it in a different order.

 

Henderson vs Shogun

What an epic fight this was, Henderson put in a career best performance for me here, this was an excellent Rua who showed up, Henderson buzzed him early and used a mixture of grappling and striking to take the early proceedings as he used his tank like strength to great effect.

If this Henderson showed up against Shields he'd have no doubt won the fight.

I really think this solidified his claim as an absolute ATG.

I mean he's beaten ATG fighters from 3 weight classes now in Fedor, Nog, Rua, Wandy, Franklin and Bisping.

Not to mention his raft of other top class wins.

Shields, Anderson Silva, Rogerio and Jackson are the only people to really have mastered Henderson in his long and storied career and considering the lack of prestige his division had in Pride and the dominance or Silva in UFC he's done the only thing he could to seal a great legacy and that's fight above his class picking up great victories.