1) Sak over Nino: Nino def. looked more comfortable standing though still cant do much but pull guard and pull the rubber guard type thing and just wait till something happens. Pretty sad to see him raise his hands at the end though. He had one good shot the whole fight which was immediately countered by a single leg. Sak wasnt exactly amazing, he had Nino in trouble a couple times but couldnt finish. That running footstomp at the end was cool though.
Not sure what the future holds for Sak. (btw, did you gay ass conspiracists catch Randleman give his props to Rampage and Sak, the 2 fighters who beat him previously to Saturdays match? Sure they paid him to say that too?)
2) Rampage over Arona: Arona looked great. I had been posting that, win or lose, perhaps this was Arona's opportunity to let it all hang out, and for the most part he did. Both fighters were aggressive from the get-go, Arona had some great leg kicks and Rampage threw some good punches early. Arona's takedown attempts were stuffed and then resorted to pull guard. No knock against Arona there since he was quite active in the guard.
The upkick did stun Rampage, Im sure, I think he even said it so, but stunning someone is not a finish and Arona should have quickly went for a sub or sweep imo. We all know what happened next.
3) Kharitonov over Schilt: like said, proves Kharitonov's for real. Good showing.
4) Ogawa over Silva: doesnt prove much for Ogawa but looked real to me. Again, its Pride's own fault for work accusations because if youve done it once, you open up the questionability later but Ogawa (3 time world judo champ and a good 6'4", 250 lbs) body locks and drops the flimsy Silva, what the fuck is the big deal? Shit.
5) Yoshida over Hunt: Yoshida looked sloppy and Hunt, perhaps, like Crocop, has some good MMA instinct it looked like and could have potential. The knee attempt off Yoshida's shot was proof of that. Again, though, Yoshida was never a ground/sub specialist in judo and he's old so I dont expect him to be a Mino in MMA.
6) Minotauro over Herring: These two put on another show, esp. the amazing Minotauro, dam! Like Rampage/Arona, these two quickly came out with high intensity and got busy in a hurry. It looked pretty much like their first match 2 years ago, Mino with the better hands and Herring with the leg kicks (and still keeping his head down when throwing the hands). Like last time, Mino was all over Heath on the ground but Heath still made it exciting by escaping and managed to get semi half guard / mount for a brief moment.
Mino finished with the same choke he did last time. (Did any of you catch Rampage's comments? After saying he'd never seen that choke before, he also said it was similar to a move they use to do in collegate wrestling. Its always seemed similar to the movement - though the grip is tighter on the neck obviously - to a move we use to call a Geboury in wrestling (not sure how its spelled) use to turn you opponent off a failed shot where you get head and arm lock)
"Is that one of Heath's nuts hangin out?" - Rampage is priceless.
7) Fedor over Randleman: I was actually pretty touched to hear that KR went out guns blazing before I saw it. When he was doing the kangaroo during the fighter introduction at the beginning of the show, I re-realized, win or lose, aslong as KR comes to fight, he is a great asset to MMA. Tell me you dont get excited when you see that mofo jumping and down half way up to the roof. He went at Fedor right away and dropped Fedor in possibly the best suplex since Severn on Macias (only this was Fedor, the bigger man and a grappler himself).
But Ive said that it looked worse than it was since Fedor, like Macias, and like often done in suplexes, landed on his uppher shoulder area more (but in this case, it def. COULD have been worse). Whatever the case, Fedor, AGAIN, showed why he is the man as he proceeded in cold calculated style, reversed and isolated and freed up KR's arm for the kimura.
The anticipated rematch between Fedor and Mino has to be one of the greatest stages set ever in MMA. Both are kicking fucking ass. Too bad they have to fight before they might face each other.
Finally, did you catch Rampages' shout out at the end to Vancouver, Canada and his funny sounding jibberish as his parting shot? Apparently his girlfriend is from Vancouver (my buddy saw him at the liquor store here) and I think that was Rampage saying 'fuck yo mama' in Vietnamese. Priceless.