Pro Sports Blogging

UFC 117 Aftermath

Well UFC has come and gone, and I have to admit, I was very  entertained in 4 out of the 5 televised fights.

Quick Hits:

185 lbs.: Anderson Silva (184.5) vs. Chael Sonnen (185) – Silva  via Submission
170 lbs.: Ricardo Almeida (170.5) vs. Matt Hughes (170.5) -  Hughes via Submission
265 lbs.: Junior Dos Santos (240) vs. Roy Nelson (263) – Dos  Santos via Decision
170 lbs.: Thiago Alves (171.5)* vs. Jon Fitch (170.5) – Fitch via  Decision
155 lbs.: Rafael dos Anjos (156) vs. Clay Guida (156) – Guida via  TKO

The Long n’ Dirty:

Fight #1 – Junior Dos Santos vs Roy Nelson
This fight was all Dos Santos, as he smashed the melon of Roy  Nelson for a full 15minutes.  The scary part in all this was that  Nelson was the one moving forward towards JR the entire fight,  even after absorbing more damage then any of JR’s previous  opponents.  Unfortunately for Roy, his striking just simply isn’t  at the level of DoS Santos, and the hand-full of takedowns he  attempted were all stuffed with relative ease.  Dos Santos should  be an interesting fight against Lesnar or velasquez.  Can he stop  the takedowns and survive the nasty ground and pound that is  Brock or does he give up too much weight and strength?  Does he  end up fighting Cain, where we’ll see two very good strikers  exchanging in the centre of the octagon?  Either way, this is  probably a fight we’ll see in January or February of 2011.

Fight #2 – Matt Hughes vs Ricardo Almeida
The fight started off with Almeida striking away at Hughes from  the outside, but a big left by Hughes dropped Almeida to his  knees.  Hughes, seeing the advantage, dives in on Ricardo who was  on all fours with a nasty looking north-south headlock.  After  about 5-6 seconds, and some slight repositioning by Hughes,  Ricardo goes out before he can even tap.  Good job by the referee  to see Almeida go limp, and he pulls Hughes off him.

Fight #3 – Rafael dos Anjos vs clay Guida
Guida can’t sit still for more then a 5 seconds, as even the  referee outside the ring asks him to stop bouncing around on his  feet as they try to apply some vaseline and check his mouthguard  and junk cover.  Yikes.  Anyway, as for the fight, Dos Anjos wins  the first round easily due to his striking, while the second  round did see Rafael on his back, Guida, in typical fashion, did  absolutely no damage at all.  Mostl likely that won the round for  Guida (have I stated enough times that points for Lay n’ Pray  drive me insane?).  The third rounds starts much the same as the  first round, but again Rafael ends up on his back.  After Guida  pushes Dos Anjos into the cage, we see a tap from Dos Anjos from  the bottom.  No strikes landed, but on review we can see that  Clay’s shoulder is in the jaw area of Dos Anjos and a big grimace  of pain.  The referee stops the fight and Guida wins by TKO.  The  camera manages to pick up that Rafael’s claiming his jaw is  broken, which ties into an odd conversation in Dos Anjos’ corner  after the first round where the cornermen asks Rafael if he can  bite down or not.  Rogen confirms that a punch from Guida in the  first round appears to have broken the jaw of Rafael dos Anjos.

Fight #4 – TV Filler – Struve vs Morecraft.
Morecraft comes out and batters Struve, who gets taken down early  in the round.  Morecraft postures up and starts dropping huge  bombs on Struve, and bloodies him up early.  The referee almost  comes in to stop the fight, but allows them to continue.  Struve  attempts a couple of triangles from the bottom, but for his  efforts, eats another series of punches.  He’s bleeding now from  the mouth, and continues to get slammed with huge punches.   Morecraft temporarily gets the mount and continues to smash the  face of Struve before the round mercifully ends.  Between rounds,  the doctor comes in to check on the lip of Struve which is pretty  grotesque.  The camera picks up the doctor saying “You should be  okay if you’ve got a good surgeon”.  Definitely not what a  fighter wants to hear.  Round 2 starts off with both fighters  going toe to toe and Struve lands three big shots on the jaw and  Morecraft goes down.  Another 7 shots by Struve on Morecraft, and  the ref jumps in to stop the fight.  Good start for Morecraft,  but in the end, his eyes were rolling back like a shark biting  it’s prety.

Fight #5 – Thiago Alves vs Jon Fitch
Not much to say on this fight.  Typical boring 15 minute fight as  Jon Fitch does what he always does…. sucks his opponent to the  ground and controls him while doing little to no damage  whatsoever.  I’m pretty sure Alves could fight again next week  (doubtful he could make weight), as I’m not sure he had a single  mark on his face.  As for Alves, he couldn’t get anythign started  on his feet, and Fitch never appeared to be in any danger, even  when Alves temporarily reversed a bad position on the ground.   Even the fans started booing during the end of round 2 and for a  good portion of round 3.  Poor Dana who’s basically stuck putting  this kind of fight on the main card, when they are unbelieveably  predictable and boring, because these guys are fighting for the  #1 contender spot.  Even more upsetting as this now means GSP  could be looking at fighting two wrestlers back-to-back who  really don’t try to finish fights, but instead prefer to simply  grind out a win through octagon control.  Of note Rogan mentions  that Alves was only off making weight by a half pound, but  apparently decided not to try to loose that half pound in the 2  hour period allowed.  He figures Alves was too drained to make  the attempt, and instead gave up 20% of his fight purse, which  largely played into the way this fight turned out.  I’m not sure  if it was due to a time restraint, but the post fight interview  with the winner was completely cut off and instead a pre-fight  Sonnen/silva package is shown.

Fight #6 – Chael Sonnen vs Anderson Silva for the Middlweight  title
This fight was ridiculous.  The crowd started off chanting for  Silva and finished chanting Sonnen.  This fight was all about  Sonnen and his ability to put Silva on his back and continuously  pound on him.  I’d have scored the first round 10-8 as a big shot  by Sonnen while the fighters were standing up, put Silva down,  and then nasty ground and pound ensued.  Rounds 2, 3 and 4 were  very similar, with Sonnen taking down Silva pretty much at will,  and while not necessarily landing massive damaging shots, he  landed continuous shots that both hurt and kept Silva on his  back.  There were a few attempts by Silva to pull of a submission  from his back, but Chael shrurgged off most with ease.  Silva did  catch Sonnen with one elbow while he was on his back, and the cut  was nasty, but was controlled by the cut-man between rounds.   Round five saw Silva come out like a man possessed, and he  finally manages to tag Sonnen and inflict some damage.  Sonnen  actually wobbled at one point, but eventually did what he does  best, and that was put Silva down on his back again.  So with  only 2 minutes to go in the fight, and a dominating performance  by Sonnen, the unthinkable happens to the wrestler.  From a full  guard position where Sonnen is postured up but sitting on his  heels, he moves in to land another shot to Silva`s face with his  left hand.  Silva`s left leg shoots up and over the right  shoulder of Sonnen and before you can blink, Silva has sunk in a  triangle! Sonnen tries to escape, but Silva grabs his right arm,  and although the triangle is deep, Sonnen taps to the armbar.  a  bit of controversy insues, as Sonnen only tapped once, and the  referee and fighters seemed to be a bit confused if it was a  stoppage or not, but the replay confirms Sonnen tapped.  To  Sonnen`s credit, he doesn`t really complain about the single-tap,  which I`m sure a lesser fighter would have done.  Post fight  interview, Anderson mentions that he hurt his ribs a week ago,  and went against the doctor`s advice in fighting that night.

Like I said earlier, a very good card with the exception of the  Fitch vs Alves fight.  I hope we see Belfort take on Chael or  Mardquart and okami take on Silva in the next series of fights.   In my opinion, they could put Belfort in for a title fight, but  that leaves some question marks as to what fights the UFC would  set up for the number one contender position.
Hopefully UFC 118 can be just as exciting at the end of the  month!

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Written by aboveaveragesportfan