A friend of mine emailed this to me. It was posted on another forum i believe. Its a bit long, but its a great read. I was at the event as well and agree with just about all of it. Im just copying and pasting so I hope this works...
[Full disclaimer]
1) I'm not a writer. I'm not an aspiring writer. These were all initially just bullet-pointed notes which I haphazardly turned into sentences, and I'm aware that I have no talent nor know what I'm talking about.
2) It's in the title: this is long.
Basically I wrote this up to share with some people who I was swapping thoughts with, and figured that maybe a fraction of one percent of Sherdog would be interested in seeing it, too. So I'm posting this for them. The rest of you already know that it's long and I have no talent, so you only make yourself look bad if you read the whole thing only to complain at the end.
[/Full disclaimer]
You know you have a good night of fights (especially for the generally less glitzy Fight Nights) when it gets extended an hour and you still feel like you missed a lot. The un-aired fights were one-sided showcasing affairs on paper, and that turned out to be the case in reality as well. But who doesn’t want to see Clay Guida recover from some early trouble to stop an opponent with his “chimpanzee trying to open a lunchbox” ground and pound? Or Marcus Aurelio stun and armbar his opponent in a gif-able 16 seconds? Throw in TUF standouts Gamburyan and Sotiropoulos and a competitive match-up between veterans Din Thomas and Josh Neer, and despite the fact that I watched MMA for four hours straight on Wednesday (including the TUF premiere, which was pretty much pure fights itself), I was still left wanting more, probably indicating some kind of chemical imbalance about which I should contact a physician.
Following are my belated and non-sequential thoughts on the fights that thankfully did make the telecast. Although I wish I had gotten this down before I forgot during which fight Joe Rogan dropped mention of a “rape choke” (instantaneously destroying my years-long effort to convince some of the other people in the room that two half-naked men grappling wasn’t homoerotic if you knew what they were doing). Oh well.
Anthony Johnson vs. Tommy Speer
Upon seeing Anthony Johnson and his accompanying highlight reel, my first thought was that his athleticism (which I have the slightest inkling Joe Rogan may also be impressed with) reminded me of Georges St. Pierre. His 51-second destruction of the likable Tommy Speer soon followed, reminding me of Anderson Silva’s similar destruction of TUF veteran Chris Leben. There is no reason to believe that Anthony Johnson is anywhere close to St. Pierre or Silva’s level right now. I cannot emphasize this enough. Still, it’s not a bad night for a fighter when he reminds of both of those two in a span of one minute.
James Irvin vs. Houston Alexander
Tough night for Steve Mazzagatti, who was involved with not one, but two controversial stoppages. The first was the result of a sneaky Superman punch by James Irvin that dropped Houston Alexander and led to a TKO stoppage 8 seconds into their much-anticipated match-up. I was disappointed. I thought that they’d be swinging at each other for at least 45 seconds before a victor emerged. Quick KO’s like this are fun, but always ultimately disappointing if the fight is very anticipated, in my opinion. The issue just doesn’t seem settled that quickly. But I can’t argue with the stoppage. If Alexander doesn’t want to get rescued by the referee, he has to avoid doing his “stick both arms stiffly up in the air while letting the head loll back to the floor” defense. It gives a bad impression.
Karo Parisyan vs. Thiago Alves
Mazz’s other tough stoppage, however, seemed a little more questionable. Thiago Alves had dropped Karo Parisyan into a limp heap with a knee in the second round of their competitive bout, and finished the fight with a flurry of right hands. I question the stoppage because while Parisyan was obviously stunned, it seemed that he was actively regaining his bearings and trying to work for a better position when Mazzagatti stepped in, even blocking the last of Alves’ strikes with his arm. You can’t be too critical of the referee in this situation: after the way Karo fell to the ground, I’m pretty sure Mazzagatti had already half-decided that the fight was over, and it's better to err on the side of caution when it comes to fighter safety. But all things considered, this fight was stopped too early.
Parisyan was understandably upset. Even more understandable when you remember that the whole reason he was fighting Alves instead of Jon Fitch was because he wanted an easier fight instead of risking his perceived opportunity at a title shot. Those paying attention should note that karma can be a real bitch. Do not mess with karma.
Gray Maynard vs. Frankie Edgar
Maynard himself offered the most concise and accurate analysis of the fight: “I’m bigger.”
Yup. He is. And that did indeed seem to be the difference in this fight, with the always game and exciting Edgar simply being outwrestled by the larger Maynard, getting hurled bodily to the ground three times in the final round, and unable to get comfortable standing for fear of Maynard’s power.
The right man won in this fight, but Edgar deserves credit for doing something that more fighters should: wrestle from the bottom. There were periods of open guard work from Edgar, but it seems the wrestler understood quickly that he wasn’t likely to submit Maynard from his back. So rather than pull the dreaded closed guard and hope for a stall, Edgar worked consistently to sit out, get to his feet, or reverse his opponent. Consequently, what could have been a boring fifteen-minute “turtle fucking” session (in the words of Dana White), turned into a moderately interesting, but ultimately lopsided contest. Edgar’s efforts couldn’t change the result, but they did change the fight, and he deserves support for the risks he took on the ground.
Tim Boetsch vs. Matt Hamill
By now, you should be realizing that my recollection of these fights doesn’t obey the chronological order in which they occurred. Forgiveness, please.
Every once in a while, Goldberg and Rogan will fixate on something and keep mentioning it over and over until I am convinced that they must be wrong if they don’t even realize that I heard them the first time. Sometimes, however, they are right. And the case of Denver’s elevation would seem to be one of those occasions, seeming to tangibly effect several of the night’s fights. None moreso than this one. Boetsch looked half dead when Hamill put him on the ground, and it’s hard to believe that a fighter wouldn’t pace themselves better if they knew their gas tank was that shallow (which, theoretically, they would).
Assuming that the elevation wasn’t the whole story, however, Boetsch’s effort has to be considered a mild
Kurt Pellegrino vs. Nate Diaz
Many believe that whoever wins a fight is the better fighter. This is a completely sensible and rational way to view things. After all, what better measurement of a fighter’s ability can there be but to fight? Isn’t the point of being a good fighter to win fights? And so people of this mindset probably came away from this fight very enthusiastic about Diaz, a tough and rising lightweight prospect who might already have one of the best triangle chokes in the division.
But if you think that there are cases when the better fighter might lose (beyond freak occurrences of blowing out a knee or something), there’s a good chance you’d point to this bout as a good example. Pellegrino absolutely dominated Diaz in the first round. And not even Sylvia vs. Nog dominated, where the stand-up fighter was able to keep it standing while the ground fighter was frustrated in his failed takedown attempts. Pellegrino worked Diaz over on the ground, going for submission attempts, passing guard at will, and managing some brutal and efficient ground and pound from a side control crucifix that was probably a couple seconds away from ending the fight before Diaz wriggled away. At the end of the round, I wondered to my father whether it had been a 10-8 round. He didn’t really understand the scoring system, so after I explained that the winner automatically got 10 points while the loser got 9 or less, he paused to think.
“10-6,” he finally said.
Two things are pretty obvious: Pellegrino was on a different level from Diaz in that round, and my father still needs more education about the 10 point must scoring system.
Entering the second round, it looked to be more of the same, with Pellegrino again slipping a Diaz punch and landing an effective takedown. Diaz tried a Kimura that Pellegrino didn’t seem at all worried about and the fight went back to the feet. Shortly after, Pellegrino lifted Diaz bodily into the air for a takedown, making the crucial error of putting his arm between Diaz’s legs. After kicking off the fence to lessen the force of the takedown, Diaz found himself in a ready-made triangle which he was able to celebrate even before the tap. Fight over. Perhaps karma again had something to do with it, as Pellegrino had not long before been show-boating a little as Diaz had tried to land that Kimura.
Diaz showed his resilience in this fight, gutting out a lot of punishment before securing the win. But it’s hard for me to say that a performance was “impressive” when the most impressive thing was that a fighter simply survived all the blows that he couldn’t defend properly. So is Diaz the lightweight Rodrigo Nogueira, toughing out early stretches before his opponent gets tired and falls into the inevitable submission, like a more talented and grappling version of Homer Simpson? Or did Pellegrino simply get lazy playing with his food, and forget that Diaz was a threat to him because of how the fight was unfolding? Are they the same thing? Up to you, I guess. But I, at least, definitely came away from that fight more impressed with Pellegrino, even though Diaz deserved the win.
Joe Lauzon vs. Kenny Florian
There have probably, certainly, been better and more dramatic first rounds than what unfolded in the night’s main event. But because I have the attention span of a crack-addicted kitten, I couldn’t think of any of them during the opening round of Ken-Flo vs. J-Lau, in a battle that would determine, at the least, whose nickname was less masculine.
Lauzon had numerous leglock attempts throughout the round that had me squirming in my chair, but Florian worked through them calmly and did more damage throughout the round with fists and elbows, no matter the position. Near the end of the round Florian had a good takedown attempt from Lauzon’s back, but forgot where he was in the cage and threw Lauzon into the fence, from where Lauzon fell on top of him. Again, Florian looked more busy from the bottom than Lauzon from the top. I thought Florian’s blows gave him the round. But it was close.
The second round was not. Whether the thin Denver air had something to do with it or not, Florian looked to be clearly better than his opponent, landing a nice body kick before getting a takedown and passing to mount seemingly without effort, where he was to stay, raining down blows on an unbowed Lauzon, who try as he might simply could not buck Florian off before the referee finally stepped in to stop the fight. This pleased me because, while I liked both of these fighters, Lauzon had made me question that a little with his comments before the fight. You know, karma and all.
But my bigger question is why so many people dog Ken Florian? You see so many people complain about “boring LnP” matches and hate on fighters who go for a decision instead of embodying the “samurai spirit” and fighting stupidly in order to get a finish just to entertain viewers at home. Then a fighter comes along who takes pride in finishing his fights, just like the people want, and those same people immediately dislike him for being proud of finishing fights. It doesn’t make sense.
Apparently, Florian is a bad fighter because he has elbows. This surprised me because I was under the impression that other fighters had them as well. Never mind that disliking any fighter for using elbows makes as much sense as disliking Wanderlei Silva or Shogun Rua for using head-stomps. From the way people talk about Florian, you’d think that the only way he ever won was by a “BS stoppage” from a cut caused by one of Florian’s elbows, which he sharpens with a whetstone during training. But the only cut stoppage win on Florian’s official record is over Alex Karalexis, nearly three years ago. I had no idea that Karalexis had so many loyal fans, but this seems to be the only explanation for why people haven’t let it go by now.
Now, full honesty, I never watched TUF 1. I hear that Florian stopped Chris Leben with a cut, as well. And maybe he came off like dick. I don’t know, I didn’t watch. All I know is that Florian has always handled himself with a reasonable amount of pride and class since then, and his record since the Karalexis stoppage is 6-1, with none of those wins being from a cut and the only blemish being a five-round decision loss in a title bout against Sean Sherk.
Florian is far from a favorite of mine, but I like him well enough, and he’s an effective and gutsy fighter. I just don’t understand why he gets so little respect. At a glance, he’s the antithesis of the “model” of fighter that people dislike: the straight-forward, decision-oriented wrestler. Florian is a submission specialist who has improved his striking leaps and bounds, to where he is a legitimate threat there, as well. But I guess people will make up their own minds. Perhaps he’d get more support if he apologized after his fights a la recent Arlovski, only, you know, apologizing for the exact opposite.
Too bad there wasn’t a fourth hour, huh?
"Too bad there wasn’t a fourth hour, huh?"
Feels like you already stole one from me to make up for it, though. Thanks.
Zzz.
Good analysis and actually a pretty entertaining read.
On a scale of 1-10 I give it a solid B.
damn, why didn't he mention it was so long of a read?
Get your friend to polish it and submit it for review for freelance work. Excellent writer.
Heh. I've got 3 or 4 mates who've kept up the interest over the years after me forcing them to watch for so long. 1 writes me e-mails like that after every show too... I love new fans.
"Get your friend to polish it and submit it for review for freelance work. Excellent writer."
LMFAO
"Posts: 421"
LOL
Great read...seems like some people never made it out of the 6th grade( teacher,teacher, it's to long to read...)
i know i know, i said it was a bit long! my friend didnt write it, but saw it on another forum and forwarded it to me. thought some might find it mildly entertaining! ..maybe not?! :)
"Or did Pellegrino simply get lazy playing with his food, "
LMFAO!
good read IMO
well done, good analysis and pretty entertaining
Good stuff and I agree... the Diaz brothers are just versions of Nogeria now.