This may or may not become a semi-regular thing if I feel up to it. I've been a casual MMA fan for a few years, having spurts of interest where I'll follow the sport religiously for a few months and then totally forget about it for another few months. I've really been back into the sport over the last six months though and try to catch every major show, so I figured I'd post my thoughts on them for fun's sake. No official "ratings" or anything like that for any of the fights as I find rating a fight to be a totally different beast altogether from rating a wrestling match, so instead I'll just comment on whether I enjoyed the fight and what my general thoughts on it were. You could consider this an official "review" even if you want to. Nothing too in-depth or crazy though, so let's get to it.
So I caught a bit of the prelims and the main event of this show the night it happened, but didn't get around to watching the entire thing until today. Really good show, some solid fights and a good main event made it worth checking out.
Chris Weidman vs. Jesse Bongfelt was a nice little quick opener for the prelims on Spike. Apparently Weidman dislocated his knee (which he's already had a bunch of surgeries on) in the fight and just kept fighting through it, tough dude. Pretty dominant win by submission in the first round.
Sam Stout vs. Yves Edwards deservedly got KO of the night for Stout. Yves crumpled to the floor like a sack of potatos, he really got nailed right on the button. Was glad to see Stout didn't follow up with any unnecessary punches either, he knew after that one left hand that it was all over and just walked away. Awesome knockout.
Joey Beltran vs. Aaron Rosa was a really entertaining fight. The first round was a total war with both guys trading some crazy punch exchanges. They really beat the tar out of each other in the first round, but neither man seemed phased. They didn't slow down the pace in the next two rounds either and this was an easy candidate for fight of the night.
Donald Cerrone vs. Vagner Rocha was a lot of fun to watch because Cerrone made Vagner Rocha look silly in the fight for the PPV opener, refusing to even attempt going to the ground with him and instead just kicking his legs into total oblivion for 3 rounds. Rocha could barely even put stand midway through the second round, and it was just more of the same in the third so Cerrone won pretty convincingly. Entertaining to see Cerrone just dissect Rocha with the low kicks.
Dave Herman vs. John-Olav Einemo was another good fight. First round was pretty perfunctory stuff and the crowd was really behind Einemo (who sported a Canucks flag before the fight to get some cheap heat). Second round was great though, both guys were swinging for the fences and going totally wild, leading to an awesome finish for Herman. Entertaining fight.
Mark Munoz vs. Demian Maia was yet another good fight (recurring theme tonight, eh?), a really even fight that could have gone either way and in the end Munoz got the split decision. Both guys looked good I thought, and really the argument could have been made for either man winning the fight. First two rounds were a lot of fun, and the third had a big fight feel to it because of how even the first two were. Good stuff.
Kenny Florian vs. Diego Nunes, yet again another good fight and with a ton of heat from the crowd because of Florian rocking a Bruins jersey during the weigh-ins the other night. Florian totally outclassed Nunes here from beginning to end, getting some big takedowns and cutting open Nunes pretty badly with some nasty elbows. Another solid win for Florian and I'm sure people are going to start throwing him into title fight talks pretty soon.
Junior Dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin was a good way to cap off the show as it definitely had a big fight feel to it, even with Carwin having to replace Lesnar. Carwin showed a ton of heart in the fight and most refs probably would have called it when Junior got him down on the mat and just went to town with strikes to the face but credit to Carwin he was never truly "out of it" and was able to stick around through out the entire fight. Unfortunately for him though JDS was the clearly dominant fighter here, remaining calm and collected while Carwin got frustrated and just getting his shots in carefully. Big way for JDS and I know a lot of people are more interested to see him fight Cain Velasquez for the title now then they were before. Good fight.
Overall a great show honestly, I came in with low expectations but every fight wound up being entertaining in some way, with several very good fights aand a solid main event. The prelims were a lot of fun too. All around another fun show from the UFC and an easy Thumbs Up from me.
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