It’s a good thing I didn’t get around to posting any picks for this event because I was wrong about every single fight on the main card. After the first three fights, I turned to my buddy and said, “I feel bad for Shogun Rua and Chuck Liddel.” And lo, their asses were kicked.
Forest Griffin impressed with his first big win over a top contender, and Keith Jardine proved what everyone has been saying since the Rampage fight: Chuck is a good kick-boxer who can eat whatever wrestler Dana White spoon-feeds him alive, but he doesn’t like getting punched in the face, and his odd (to be kind) fighting style is easily picked apart by anyone with a technical striking game. Evolve or retire Chuck, for your own good. I mean, aren’t you glad that he found this out before Wanderlai Silva had a chance to make him each knees for 15 minutes?
The one thing I think I can add to the internet clamor about the fights is that I wasn’t really impressed by John Fitch or Tyson Griffin. They won their fights, by the traditional measures, but mostly they just seemed to stay out of trouble without working to finish the fight. Griffin’s fight was great to watch, but mostly because of the BJJ clinic that Thiago Tavares was putting on. Fitch did a great job escaping from Diego Sanchez’s many submission attempts while delivering the occasional “monkey punch,” but it was the submissions that made the fight great.
They both won on the basis of superior wrestling, but never really put their opponents in any real danger. I’m not saying that Sanchez or Tavares won those fights, just that they did more to win them. Call it “Sprawl and Stall,” call it “Lay and Pray,” I don’t care: I don’t like watching wrestling, and I certainly don’t want to watch it when I’m paying to watch a fight.
Again, they were clearly more athletic than their opponents, and clearly had great hip control, but let’s seem some fighting. Is that too much to ask?
Well, I wish I was a betting man, because I was right about the winners, if not the methods of victory, for every single fight on the card last night. Randy Couture won an impressive fight, stopping Gabriel Gonzaga in the third round with a TKO. What was amazing was that the 44-year-old dominated a man 16 years younger with better striking, better conditioning and what can only be described as complete domination. And like I said, Napao is a stupid nickname.
We were having a party at our place last night, so I taped the fights and watched them today. It took all the willpower I had not to check the many MMA-related feeds that I follow this morning so that I could see the fights without knowing the winners. The show was much better than 73, though I found GSP’s fight a little dull. It looks like after changing teams and managers, he decided to change his fighting style as well. I guess it was effective, but I would have thought such a well-rounded fighter could have finished a limited wrestler/striker like KOS, either with his kicks or by submission.
Once again, it sucked to pay to see the fights, and miss almost all of the preliminary bouts. Luckily, Randy finished his fight early enough that we got to watch Thales Leites put a beautiful armbar on Ryan Jensen. But whichever fight left mat stained with blood for the rest of the night would have been nice to see.
The best news is that UFC 75: Watch a Deaf Guy Get his Ass Kicked will be free on Spike TV. Seeing Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Dan Henderson go at it for free (as well as watching Michael Bisping destroy the aforementioned Matt Hamill) will be great. I hope to make fight picks a regular part of this site, so I’ll have to get something together next week.