UFC 109's Nightmare Aftermath

UFC 109 was last night and after the fights, they have to leave the UFC reeling a little bit. While the Main Event fight pretty much went as expected, the co-main event and one under card fight had to have had a ripple effect for upcoming UFC cards.

The ageless Randy Couture took on an equally ancient Mark Coleman last night in the main event and the fight really went about as expected. The more athletic Couture rammed Coleman up against the cage for most of the 1st round. The 2nd started the same before Couture got the take-down and eventually worked to Coleman's back before sinking in a rear-naked choke to put Coleman to sleep, literally. In fact the only time when Coleman actually fought back was after Tito Ortiz was talking trash, walking past the Octagon as Coleman was doing a post-fight interview. Coleman started getting animated and called Tito a 'douchebag' and challenged him to fight that won't ever happen, at least not in the UFC.

Everything before that fight is what may cause the UFC some issues. Coming into the Nate Marquardt and Chael Sonnen fight, Dana White said that the winner was in line for a title shot. Now, Sonnen was on a two fight win streak during the second go around in his UFC career thus far, but other than Yushin Okami, no big fights. The proclamation was more for Marquardt, since Marquardt vs Dan Henderson was the fight the UFC really wanted. But Henderson left because he wanted the next shot, not another fight before he got his shot. So the UFC scheduled Sonnen as a tune-up for Marquardt. A funny thing happened on the way through the tune-up and unfortunately for the UFC and Marquardt, Sonnen won a three round unanimous decision victory. It wasn't in dominate fashion and Sonnen doesn't really have the pedigree to earn a title shot at this point, but with Henderson gone and Marquardt losing, after Vitor Belfort challenges Anderson Silva, the UFC really doesn't have anyone else in the Middleweight division worthy of a shot at this point.

The other fight that causes some issues in their title picture future was the Mike Swick and Paulo Thiago fight. Originally scheduled as a rematch of Josh Koscheck vs Paulo Thiago, the UFC viewed the fight as a way for Koscheck to avenge his most recent loss Thiago and put himself in line for a rematch with Georges St. Pierre, this time with a title on the line. Koscheck got hurt and Swick filled in for him, trying to rebound from a #1 contender match vs Dan Hardy, presumably to get back on the right track towards a title shot of his own. Swick was no match for Thiago and succumbed to a Brabo choke in the 2nd round of the matchup. With a second loss in a row, Swick falls further out of title contention and now needs to rebound in his next fight before he finds himself out of a UFC contract. Meanwhile, Thiago still isn't ready for a title shot and as of now, the UFC has no one else ready to step in once St. Pierre defeats Dan Hardy in March. Will the UFC let Koscheck get his title shot without facing Thiago?

UFC 100 thoughts

Last night, the UFC held what it was calling UFC 100, their monumental event. And while it actually wasn't their 100th event, they treated it as a showcase show, trying to pack the fight card with as many crowd pleasing fights as they could. What the crowd got was two dominant performances from Champions and one of those Champions trying to be a heel to the crowd, much like he portrayed in his previous occupation. More on that in a second.

If you ask MMA fans across the world, most would say that either Fedor Emelianenko or Anderson Silva is the best pound for pound fighter in the world. But after last night's shutout, dominant victory over Thiago Alves, one has to wonder if Georges St. Pierre is going to start getting his name in the conversation.

And it wasn't just because he beat the toughest opponent he's faced yet since becoming Champ, it's the way GSP did it, neutralizing Alves striking ability and taking him down with ease and just absolutely dominating him while preventing Alves from doing anything. Alves would stand up, try to strike with GSP and GSP we would be game for a little while until he decided to take him down, again. And this all happened every round, repeatedly, including the 4th and 5th round, when GSP told his corner that he hurt his groin, possibly tearing a ligament or muscle. Fighting on one leg for the last 2 rounds, GSP showed no signs of the injury until after the final horn sounded. Up next is possibly the winner of Mike Swick vs Martin Kampmann, but I don't know if anyone can give him a challenge unless the UFC and Anderson Silva decide that they want that fight at 185.

A nice grudge match between Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping, coaches on The Ultimate Fighter season 9 coaches, helped electrify the crowd on the second fight of the PPV. Henderson grew a hatred on the show for the cocky Bisping, who felt that everyone was underestimating him. Problem for Bisping is that if you feel that people are underestimating you, you have to do something to show them why the shouldn't. And circling to your left towards a right hand that can smash a brick wall isn't going to end well. But Bisping was game for the first round, counter punching and trying to engage a little bit here and there while trying to not get his head sent into the first row. Second round he wasn't so lucky. After his corner reminded him to circle right, Bisping decided to continue to circle left, towards Henderson's right hand and after throwing a punch received a counter punch on the chin that knocked him out before his head hit the canvas, hard. Henderson, admitting that he knew Bisping was out, decided to throw an elbow to embed Bisping's skull on the canvas, to 'shut him up' as he put it in the post fight interview. Next up for Henderson is a possible rematch against Anderson Silva, a fight he lost in the 2nd round on a choke, but easily won the 1st round. And with the way he looked the past 2 fights, he may just be able to do it.

The last fight on the card wasn't the main event of Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir, but instead a match between former welter weight contender Jon Fitch and Pualo Thiago, a fighter that knocked out Fitch's training partner Josh Koscheck with a vicious uppercut last time out. Sadly for the fighters, they went from being the 3rd fight on the PPV to a swing bout, having to wait till after the Main Event to fight and after much of the crowd went home. And they missed an exciting ground war, as Fitch was in a choke for about 2 or 3 minutes of the first round, easily losing the round to Thiago. But Fitch came out strong in the 2nd and 3rd round, dominating the ground exchange for those 2 rounds and getting the unanimous decision.

The fight that most people came to see was the Mir vs Lesnar fight, as the trash talk between these two started after Mir beat Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in Dec, telling Lesnar that 'you have my belt.' After the fight was postponed from a May date to the UFC 100, Lesnar was telling people that Mir had a horseshoe up his ass that fight. After last night, Lesnar made sure that there would be zero doubt as to who was the UFC champ.

While Lesnar has been content with standing and striking during his UFC career, he took down Mir in the first round with ease and then proceeded to pound Mir with the pickup trucks he calls fist for 3 minutes, even while the best referee in MMA telling Lesnar that he had to work. And with the crowd chanting 'Stand Them Up', Lesnar continued to punch Mir repeatedly with his fists, doing enough damage to Mir's face that made it look like raw meat after the first round.

The second round started much the same, though the first time Mir was on the ground, Lesnar wanted Mir to get back up. But the next time, Mir wasn't as lucky and Lesnar took him down near the fence. This time, Lesnar wasn't getting up until Dean pulled him off when he thought Mir had enough. Lesnar was just hammering Mir's face, from under his own arm, whipping his head backwards as if someone was pulling his hair every time Lesnar was punching him. When Mir had enough of the plastic surgery that was being administered by Lesnar, he decided to give Lesnar the side of his head to hit for a while instead. And Lesnar obliged, pounding it until Dean said no more. While Lesnar was celebrating around the octagon, Mir finally stumbled back to his feet. That's when Lesnar decided to bring out the WWE heel in him, going up to Mir and saying something like 'keep talking all that shit now' and then flipping off the crowd as he was being pushed away from Mir and booed. With the win, Lesnar now has complete control of the heavyweight division and awaits his next opponent. Whom that may be is unknown right now. If Cheick Kongo hadn't lost to Cain Velasquez in June, it might have been him. But its all up in the air right now.

Up next for the UFC is Aug 8th, UFC 101. BJ Penn defends his belt against Kenny Florian as the main event, and in a no-win situation, the UFC has decided to throw Anderson Silva in there against poster-boy Forrest Griffin in the light-heavyweight division. I say it's no-win because if Silva beats Griffin, their poster boy just lost two fights in a row and moves further away from a title fight. If Silva loses, the UFC can't possibly call him the best pound for pound fighter in the world, all because they wanted to give him a fighter that would cause Silva to actually engage and put on an exciting fight after his last two clunkers.

Elite XC

I've only written one blog post about MMA so far since I started writing online and it hasn't been from lack of interest or passion. I love MMA almost as much as I love football and watch all the major events that I can. I just don't think I'm more knowledgeable about the sport than the other people who blog about it and feel out of place. But, since the first network televison broadcast happened last night presented by Elite XC, I figured that the national audience of mine should at least get some kind of post about. And by national, I mean just me.

Now, I don't plan on commenting on each fight or anything like, just my general observations. Like the fact that the event had a very WWE feel to it. It felt like I was watching Monday Night Raw instead of a MMA show. Not that I felt the fights were rigged, but the cheerleaders and the entrances just felt like a little much.

Now, I'm not opposed to watching women fight. I mean, if a woman wants to get in there and mix it up, then that's their business. I mean, I won't lie, they could kick my ass without any problem whatsoever, however, if you want to be taken seriously, please don't come into the cage wearing makeup. I'm not sure if Gina Carano felt the need to look good before her fight, but to me that seems to be a bit much. I'm going to need confirmation from my girlfriend on whether she was or not, but I think I'm right.

The last thing I'm going to talk about is the main event and the fighter that Elite XC promoter Gary Shaw has banking on this past year and that's Kevin Ferguson, better known as Kimbo slice. First off, Kimbo was losing the fight going into the third round. And the fight should have been stopped in the second round. James Thompson had Kimbo pinned against the cage for 60 seconds, just pounding and elbowing him. But for some reason the ref didn't stop the fight. If the fight was in another organization or it was anyone but Kimbo, it would have been over then. But instead, at 38 seconds of the third round, Kimbo hit Thompson with a right that busted open Thompson's ear, and after a few more punches the ref ended the fight. But Thompson was still in it and it didn't appear that he was stunned all that bad. In fact, he took a swipe at the ref because he was disappointed that the ref had stopped it.

See, Thompson was supposed to be another lamb for Kimbo to just blow through and dominate. But he didn't. He was getting beaten, which I guess is a good thing, bad thing for Shaw. One one hand, Kimbo fought back after getting dominated in the first two rounds and won the fight, showing that as long as he isn't knocked out, he still has the power in his hands to do some damage. On the other hand, what does this do for the guy you've been touting as the heavyweight killer in your organization? This the guy who Shaw felt could beat anyone in the UFC, the top dog of MMA. And he almost loses to a guy who lasted 10 seconds against Butterbean. The tests are only going to get tougher for him and I wouldn't be surprised to see him lose his next fight, who might end up being Brett Rogers, someone Kimbo got into a scrap with during a postfight press conference.

UFC this weekend

This weekend, the UFC will return to the east coast for the first time in a couple of years with UFC 78: Validation. The main event pits Ultimate Fighter winners Rashad Evans vs Michael Bisping. This will be the first time the two winners of the Ultimate Fighter show have fought against each other. The fight would make a great undercard to a main event fight, unfortunately the UFC has none to offer. The rumored main event of B.J. Penn vs Sean Sherk never was able to get out of the rumor stage because of Sherk's suspension by the California State Athletic Commission for having Testosterone levels deemed to high. Sherk is still appealing his suspension and hopes to basically have it knocked to time served, since he hasn't fought since then and the appeal is scheduled for the first week in December. Penn is scheduled to fight Joe Stevenson in England in January for the interim belt, with the winner eventually to face Sherk to "unify" the two titles.

But back to Saturday. The undercard was to also feature the return of David Terrell vs Ed Herman, but Terrell had to pull out due to an ankle injury. Terrell hasn't fought in the past year and a half due to various injuries and looks to be on the shelf for some time to come.

Evans and Bisping are both coming off controversial decisions in their previous outing. Evans basically drawing with Tito Ortiz because Ortiz lost a point in their fight for holding the fence. A rematch between Ortiz and Evans was also rumored to be the main event for this card, but Tito is locked in a contract dispute with the UFC and has decided to be a part of Donald Trump's celebrity Apprentice instead.

Bisping last fought against Matt Hamill, a fellow cast member of his season of TUF a won a decision in his home country of England, depsite the fans in attendance and most watching the event thinking Hamill to have won. Hamill and Bisping are headed for a rematch as soon as Hamill recovers from knee surgery.

In a recent conference call, UFC President Dana White has said that the winner of this fight could have title implications, something that I don't think makes sense. Both fighters come into the fight undefeated, but not deserving of a title shot. Both fighters are at least a couple wins away from even being able to get a title shot. The Light Heavyweight division in the UFC has a couple of fighters more deserving of title shots and I hope that White thinks about them before the winner of Evan and Bisping. Besides, I think bought fighters have a rematch that the fans are waiting for first.