Here’s the post-fight press conference for UFC on Fuel TV: Korean Zombie vs. Poirier.

Following fighters were awarded $40,000 bonuses:

Fight of the Night: “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung vs. Dustin Poirier
Knockout of the Night: Tom Lawlor
Submission of the Night: “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung

It was also announced that the next fight for The Korean Zombie will be against featherweight champion Jose Aldo.

7:05pm- Welcome, everyone! I’ll be live-blogging the fights tonight as soon as we get a few gratuitous commercial breaks out of the way. Even when you aren’t paying for fights, you’re still paying for them, know what I mean?

7:12pm- Just 12 short minutes after the “start” of the event, we’re ready for our first bout! “Filthy” Tom Lawlor is apparently as big a fan of Chad Griggs as the rest of us are. Meanwhile, Jason MacDonald is…Jason MacDonald. Not so adventurous, that one.

7:14pm- Lawlor lands a left on the chin and a right hook tucked nicely behind MacDonald’s ear to drive him face first into the canvas and prompt a well-timed stoppage. At 36 years old and 1-3 in his past four UFC bouts, you’ve gotta wonder if that will be the last time we see MacDonald in the Octagon.

7:20- Lawlor is entertaining, as usual, in his post-fight interview. “You guys are definitely one of the best 50 states to fight in,” he tells the Virginia fans, who cheer wildly at the idea of receiving such an honor.

7:23- Those Little Caesar’s customers sure are excited to save a few dollars.

7:25- Next up: Igor Pokrajac vs. Fabio Maldonado in a battle of fighters whose names I don’t really enjoy typing. Just for fun, Jon Anik uses completely different pronunciations of “Pokrajac” during the live broadcast and the pre-recorded video package.

7:29- Zagreb, Croatia and Florianopolis, Brazil renew their ages-old rivalry here. The fight hits the mat instantly as Pokrajac works feverishly on the mat. He knows that with “Standin’” Dan Miragliotta reffing the bout, he hasn’t much time to waste.

7:33- The fighters are up through no intervention of Miragliotta (see, Dan? They can do it themselves!), and both fighters land hard, flush shots but Maldonado is much better off and tees away on Pokrajac. Beautiful body shots against the cage by Maldonado. I love it.

7:38- I’m continually impressed by Pokrajac’s smart use of knees from the Thai clinch. Between them and Maldonado’s digging body shots, I’m a happy man.

7:41- Reversal on the takedown attempt by Pokrajac seals the round for Maldonado, who has done a superb job against the cage working in hooks and uppercuts to the head and body on Pokrajac.

7:44- Standin’ Dan couldn’t make it through the whole fight without separating the fighters at least once. He moves them away from the clinch, where all the best action of the fight has happened. Pokrajac is really turning it around in this round, either way.

7:46- “He’s not just coming forward and not throwing,” Kenny Florian says as Maldonado comes forward without throwing. Maldonado is too passive for my taste through much of the third round. Pokrajac landed the best shots of the final stanza and may steal one from the judges. I favored Maldonado in the first round because of striking damage, but I think I’m in the minority and most would give it to Pokrajac, with all of his positional and grappling dominance in the round. Really, this could go either way.

7:49- I’m okay with the fight going Pokrajac’s way, but how in the WORLD do you give that second round to him? Every time you think that MMA judges are starting to get it, they remind you that no, they aren’t anywhere close.

7:54- Judges’ names weren’t announced, but I’ll be eagerly awaiting finding out who turned in the awful 30-27 scorecard from MMADecisions.com later. Also, for all of Joe Rogan’s faults, I wish he had been on the mic just now, because at least he would have skewered that awful scorecard.

7:57- The show goes on. Yves Jabouin takes on Jeff Hougland in our next bout. Again, Anik tries out different pronunciations between the live feed and the pre-recorded video package, which is weird. Not as weird as when Frank Mir called himself “Mur” in his first UFC appearance, but weird.

8:02- Hougland looks like Mini-Alessio. Hopefully, for his sake, he fares better than his larger counterpart did recently. A lot of feeling out early on before a spinning kick lands for Jabouin.

8:08- Uneventful round until Jabouin lands a beautiful spinning back kick that drops Hougland. Afterward, referee Todd McGovern actually steps between the two of them, getting in Jabouin’s way and costing him precious seconds as he tries to move in to follow up on the strike. He can’t finish but wins the round, nonetheless.

8:13- Another round is in the books, and Hougland is way too passive. He’s following Jabouin around but not actually throwing anything. That’s not gonna get it done. 20-18, Jabouin.

8:16- Jabouin catches Hougland with a left hand and again looks extremely close to finishing the fight, but Hougland is just rolling around too frantically for Jabouin to land the shots he needs. McGovern is really letting it go, so Jabouin would have likely had to knock him out cold to get a stoppage, at any rate.

8:23- Jabouin wins the decision easily and is gracious in his post-fight interview. Hougland could not be interviewed, as he is now unable to form complete sentences, thanks to referee Todd McGovern.

8:26- By the way, two judges failed to give even one 10-8 round to Jabouin. MMA judging, ladies and gentlemen!

8:32- Next up is tonight’s best matchup and should-be main event, Donald Cerrone vs. Jeremy Stephens. I guess a loss against Nate Diaz bumps you below Amir Sadollah on the pecking order, though.

8:38- Cerrone controls first round through impressive use of range and great kicks to every level of the body. At the end of the round, he’s chasing Stephens and throwing running kicks. PROTIP: That’s why you don’t say that you’re going to “break” Donald Cerrone.

8:44- This fight is all Cerrone so far. On another note, Cerrone is really going out of his way to mock and play around with Stephens. Will the fans hold it against him, or do they only mind when Rashad Evans does it?

8:48- Cerrone kicks Stephens hard in the berries; Stephen rests for a minute then continues. Anik gushes about Cerrone making a gesture of apology to Stephens. Apparently, it’s now a “nice display of sportsmanship” to apologize for kicking someone in the balls. Let’s set our standards a little lower, why don’t we?

8:53- The third round ends, as does a dominating performance by Cerrone. Stephens never got comfortable and never became aggressive, as toward the end he looked as if he just wanted it all to be over. Cerrone looks to be back to form after his puzzlingly-listless performance against Nate Diaz.

8:56- Cerrone predictably wins the unanimous decision. Fun Fact: In the closing seconds, Cerrone (who was just complimented on his “sportsmanship” by Jon Anik) yelled, “Come on, bitch!” at Stephens.

9:00- Next, in the Amir Sadollah division, Amir Sadollah (the reigning champ of the division) will take on…umm, hold on, let me look…oh, here it is: Jorge Lopez. Your “co-main event”, ladies and gentlemen! Yes, much more worthy of the spot than Cerrone-Stephens.

9:07- Sadollah is stalking Lopez, but Lopez has been hard to hit and has been landing some decent strikes. Sadollah ends up on the mat after giving up his takedown defense to go for a guillotine choke that he ultimately couldn’t hold onto.

9:14- Finally, something to care about! Sadollah goes for the high standing guillotine and Lopez takes him down and spins his way out of it. Then, back to fence-leaning monotony.

9:16- Kenny Florian, please stop encouraging this nonsense that a takedown with 30 seconds left should matter in any way to the judges. Why should a takedown with half a minute left where the offensive fighter does nothing at all afterward affect the outcome of a five-minute round?

9:21- We’re told that Sadollah has “five times as much UFC experience” as Lopez has. Um, Sadollah has eight UFC fights, while Lopez has had one. I may be wrong, but that’s eight times as much UFC experience. Okay, I’m not wrong, I’m just being snarky. But still.

9:26- Kenny Florian also said that was a “great fight”, so we know now not to trust anything he says. Anyway, Amir Sadollah retains his title in the Amir Sadollah division with a split decision victory over the tough, highly-regarded, extremely well-known Jorge Lopez. At this pace, Sadollah will be ready to challenge for an actual UFC title by the time he’s 40.

9:37- Should be a good main event, as both men like to “war”, as Lorenzo Fertitta might say. Chan Sung Jung coming out to the song “Zombie” is always a nice touch.

9:43- Lively finish to a fun first round. Glad Standin’ Dan is actually letting the two work on the mat.

9:46- Jung looks absolutely great tonight. Good, opportunistic takedowns, nice ground and pound, dynamic striking and plenty of aggression.

9:48- Just after I entered that, Jung lands a flying knee, counters a double-leg takedown by rolling with it into a sweep to the mount, goes armbar to triangle back to armbar, and elbows the crap out of Poirier’s head. After all that, people still chant “U.S.A.!” Morons.

9:54- Jung is really testing Poirier’s heart with some of these body shots. Vicious kick to the body just now that made Poirier step back and take a big breath.

9:57- Scoring always seems secondary during a great fight like this one, but for the sake of full disclosure, I’ve got Zombie up 2 rounds to 1 after a nice comeback round from Poirier.

9:59- Jung lands a beautiful uppercut, a flying knee and uses the damaging strikes to initiate the fight-ending D’Arce choke in what was an instant classic. Just a great fight and an outstanding performance by Jung, who has evolved past his former status as a fan favorite-slash-brawler into a legit contender.

10:02- Jung, through his interpreter, says that Poirier had him in trouble in the 3rd round, and the thought of giving up was in his head, but he pushed on, nonetheless. Rare candor from a professional fighter.

10:03- The fights weren’t all winners, but there was some solid action and those who stuck around were rewarded with yet another classic performance by The Korean Zombie, who has evolved before our eyes. Great stuff. Thanks for joining me and make sure to check for my UFC on Fuel 3 Parting Shots later this week.

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Straus Does Enough; Does a Championship Await Him?

Daniel Straus’s victory over Marlon Sandro simply reinforced a couple of fundamental truths about mixed martial arts, the most important of which is that you cannot allow your opponent to be much more active than you.

You could argue that neither fighter did a whole lot in terms of “damage” during the fight, but when that is the case, what’s the tie-breaker? Activity. You can break it down and talk about strikes thrown and landed, effective grappling, positional control, aggression, and so forth, but it all comes down to this: are you doing anything? Is your opponent doing more than you?

Sandro let much of this fight go by, seemingly content that his opponent was doing more than him. Sure, I would agree that pushing your opponent against the cage and holding him there has little real value, but the reality is that when two or more minutes of five-minute rounds are being spent that way, who is winning those minutes? The guy who can’t get his back off the cage? Of course not. While you may not want to reward that kind of strategy (or stalling, depending on your viewpoint), it certainly can’t be punished on the scorecards, either.

In the cage, you may be thinking that your opponent’s strikes aren’t hurting you, that you are landing the better shots, you can’t let your opponent outwork you. At some point, quantity matters more than anything else, especially when neither fighter does anything that particularly stands out. If you decide to be picky with the belief that you’ll eventually hurt your opponent when you get your opening, it’s a big gamble, because that opening often never comes and that big shot sometimes doesn’t land.

Straus, to me anyway, continues to win fights where he looks like he just wants it more than his opponent. It’s working great for him, and he is a good fighter, but he will now face a big test in the winner between Patricio “Pitbull” Freire and Pat Curran. Straus has faced Freire before, falling by unanimous decision, and Curran is an elite opponent.

While Straus says he is a different fighter than he was when he first lost to Pitbull, I don’t know that I buy that. At least, I haven’t seen it in his more recent fights. He’s still going to try to outwork you standing up and grind you out along the cage, and I don’t expect that strategy to get him very far against either Pitbull or Curran. Then again, I could be wrong, and if either man showed up with less than complete and total focus, Straus would definitely take advantage. You can’t have an off night against Daniel Straus.

Quick Shots

–Re: the Straus-Sandro fight- is there anything funnier-looking in MMA than the flying knee feint?

–Imagine the Straus-Sandro and Galvao-Marx fights if they had been officiated by Dan Miragliotta instead of Keith Peterson. In both fights, Peterson refrained from involving himself in the action, allowing the fighters to work in the clinch and forcing the defensive fighter to get his back off the cage in order to get out of the position. As a result, both fights followed their natural course and the fighters who should have won did win, without any help from the referee. That’s how it should be, even if it sometimes results in less-than-exciting bouts.

–By the way, Miragliotta was on his game Friday night, separating Marius Zaromskis and Waachiim Spiritwolf multiple times in the first round of their fight, including a trademark Dan Miragliotta “12 Seconds or Less” separation at the end of the first round.

–Speaking of Marcos Galvao and of passive approaches, I thought he made his fight with Travis Marx unnecessarily close with his puzzlingly passive attitude in the second round and the first part of the third round. Galvao did select well in terms of his strikes, but volume can’t be ignored if you want to win those close decisions regularly.

–How awful was the cross-promotional bit about “King Mo” Lawal appearing both in TNA wrestling and Bellator? I get why they’re doing what they’re doing (trying to build their own Brock Lesnar), but I do not envy Bjorn Rebney for having to grin and feign excitement over the whole thing.

Say What?

Galvao saying he didn’t kick the cup…”*watches replay*…”I respectfully disagree with Marcos Galvao.”

-Jimmy Smith upon watching the replay of Galvao’s groin kick to Marx, one of a couple of painful-looking low blows on Friday’s show.

Beautiful Loser Award

Waachiim Spiritwolf ended the second round of his bout with Marius Zaromskis with the momentum clearly in his favor in what had been a competitive and pretty entertaining fight. Unfortunately, a cut low on his forehead (and closer to being above the bridge of his nose than his eye) was deemed too severe for the bout to continue, and he lost in the worst possible way. On the plus side, the stoppage allowed us the awesome visual of Spiritwolf walking the halls backstage with a scowl, as if he was looking for another fight.

Movin’ On Up Award

Daniel Straus has lost just once in Bellator’s cage: to “Pitbull” Freire in the Season 4 Featherweight Tournament final. Since then, he’s strung together four wins in a row and has won the most recent installment of the 145-pound tournament. We talked about him at length earlier in the column, but no matter what happens, he’s earned his title shot.

Holy $#!% Award

Who else gets this but Marcin Held, who may not have been facing his original opponent, Kurt Pellegrino, but still won memorably against Derrick Kennington with a nasty heel hook. He set it up beautifully off of a failed double leg takedown, which he used to pull Kennington on top of him, isolating Kennington’s right leg and cranking his way to the “W”. Great stuff.

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In the Diaz fight, Diaz not only showed that his boxing continues to improve in measurable amounts, but showed that he’s got some power in his hands, as well. He dropped Miller with a straight left in the first round that really impressed me, and his body shots clearly had an effect as Miller was noticeably fatigued in the second round.

The finish, of course, was nothing extremely surprising, as it was vintage Nate Diaz. He opportunistically seized a guillotine choke on Miller’s takedown attempt late in round two, adjusted the hold to cinch it in tight, and got the win. One particularly grotesque visual was the sight of Miller’s tongue caught out of his mouth as he was tapping. He had already spit out his mouthpiece, so with the pressure applied from the choke one could only assume he was either already biting his tongue or just about to. Pretty nasty stuff, although no one seems to have talked to Miller about whether or not he hurt himself during the choke.

Diaz has to be seen as a real contender at this point, even to skeptics (read: me) who doubted his ability to string together wins against top competition. He has really refined his standup, especially in terms of his counter-striking, and his ground game remains top-notch. Since he fought what appeared to be a depleted Donald Cerrone, I think the Miller performance was Diaz’s best yet.

Crowd Control

Suffice to say that the crowd in New Jersey on Saturday night will not go down as one of the finer UFC crowds we’ve seen. As if Jersey Shore wasn’t a big enough eyesore, the NJ fans decided to boo, well, everything pretty much all night long. They booed when the fight hit the mat; they booed when the fighters stood and exchanged. They booed when there was a clinch. They booed first, asked questions later. It was as if they thought they had bought tickets to a WWE show and were surprised to see a couple of guys actually fighting in the cage without the aid of steel chairs, sledgehammers, and evil referees to keep the action moving.

I know a bad fight when I see one; none of the fights on the main card fit that bill. Not even close. If you go to a show and find yourself booing that often during what were some pretty good fights, you may want to consider the fact that you probably just don’t like mixed martial arts. Either that or you simply really, really like beer (and/or making an ass of yourself). Either way, shame on the fans at the Izod Center for being a terrible crowd throughout the night.

Welcome to the Daaaarrrk Siiiiiide

At first viewing, I thought that Johny Hendricks clearly won two out of three rounds against Josh Koscheck. I still believe that, but I suppose the first was close enough that you couldn’t call it outright robbery if someone somehow decided Koscheck did enough to take it. The third was Koscheck’s, too, while the second round clearly belonged to Hendricks. Therefore, rather than complain about Ricardo Almeida’s scorecard (29-28 Koscheck), let me talk about something else.

Congrats to Koscheck for deciding to go completely to the dark side instead of deciding on a fight-by-fight basis whether to be a dirtbag or not. Koscheck showed in this one that he is totally cool with being a dirty fighter, and while this won’t endear most people (or myself) to him, I at least applaud the fact that he’s decided to embrace his tendency toward bending the rules. How in the world he continues to get away with his favorite combination, the left eye-poke/overhand right, is beyond me since everyone in the sport by now should recognize that he’s doing it. But to not only poke a guy’s eye, but also grab the cage repeatedly and appeal to the ref every time you’re in a tough spot that you can’t get out of? That’s a special performance.

Do we know that Koscheck is intentionally poking guys in the eye? Well, to that I’d say two things. One is that if you are repeatedly reaching out with your left hand (as if to throw a jab) with your fingers completely extended toward your opponent’s eyeballs, does it matter if it’s on purpose or just a bad habit? Eyes are still getting poked either way, right? The other thing I’d say is that this is the guy who put on a performance that Laurence Olivier himself would have been jealous of after being “hit” by an illegal knee that never actually hit him. Why doubt that he’d continue to poke the eyes of opponents on purpose?

Quick Shots

–I see a lot of similarities between the endings of the Lavar Johnson-Pat Barry and Alan Belcher-Rousimar Palhares bouts. Barry in particular is being criticized for simply standing against the cage and absorbing Johnson’s punches while trying to recover. Why didn’t he move? Throw punches? Do something? Anything? Well, probably because he had just experienced serious head trauma and was simply surviving.

I don’t have my own MMA experiences to draw from, but I have watched thousands of fights and know that when somebody really gets rocked, it seems to “turn off” certain parts of their consciousness to the point where survival is all that matters. In these and many other cases, what happens is that a fighter simply covers up until the cobwebs clear up (as most people often put it). Palhares did the same thing on the mat while he was being pummeled by Belcher. You may be able to watch at home and see that Palhares should have done something differently or that Barry should have circled off of the cage, but being in there is a completely different experience, and these guys didn’t really have control of what they were doing.

Moving On Up Award

This one will be shared between Nate Diaz and Alan Belcher. Diaz fought the fight of his career so far and established himself as a true title contender. Meanwhile, Belcher beat Palhares in a way that only Nate Marquardt has been able to do, and that comes with a big, fat asterisk because Palhares’s crazy took over and he was having a conversation with referee Herb Dean when Marquardt knocked him senseless. For Belcher to (dangerously) play Palhares’s game on the mat, come out unscathed and then seal the deal was very impressive to see. Against all odds, Belcher has returned from a 16-month absence due to injury and returned right to where he was beforehand.

Beautiful Loser Award

This Bob Seger-inspired award goes to Pat Barry, who seems to have the corner on the market when it comes to absolutely heart-breaking losses. Barry had Laver Johnson in big trouble, maintaining side control and cranking an Americana that had Johnson visibly grimacing in pain midway through round one. However, after Johnson was able to escape the position, Barry was a little bit too willing to be stuck in Johnson’s clinch and took a knee that started the whole downward spiral for him this time around.

Adventures in Refereeing

This ADHD-inspired refereeing style we’ve been seeing over the last year or so in the UFC continues, as in the Barry-Johnson fight, referee Dan Miragliotta couldn’t resist hearing the sound of his own voice early in the first round. With Barry in side control and just having nearly subbed Johnson, Miragliotta could be heard saying, “You gotta work!” Umm, that’s what they were doing, Dan. Perhaps you should watch the fight instead of listening to the hyperactive New Jersey fans next time.

The same advice goes to Kevin Mulhall, who had an awful performance during the Koscheck-Hendricks fight. Several times he hastily separated the two fighters from the clinch, particularly when the boo birds got a little loud in the arena. He also seemed to respond to Koscheck’s gestures when Koscheck was stuck in certain positions, as when he was pinned against the fence in the first round, being controlled by Hendricks while Hendricks slammed knees into Koscheck’s legs. The knees were clearly effective, too, as Koscheck had started actively trying to block them before that particular intervention by Mulhall. As many people gave round one to Koscheck (inexplicably, in my opinion), that separation could have easily cost Hendricks the fight.

Let’s not forget that Mulhall also missed the eye poke that stalled Hendricks’ momentum for the first minute or two of the opening round, too. When you watch a fight and notice that the ref is doing his job as if he has money on one of the fighters, that’s not a good thing.

Holy $#!% Award

This goes to Alan Belcher for an absolutely blistering ground and pound attack on Rousimar Palhares, especially one right elbow that started the whole thing and had Palhares clearly dazed. Actually, their whole fight was pretty much worthy of this award, as there were some very tense moments on the mat where I thought Palhares was about to put Belcher back on the shelf for several more months, this time with a leg injury.

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That’s not to say that the rest of the card didn’t hold up, as there was good action throughout the night, along with some other solid talking points to get us through another week. It wouldn’t be a Parting Shots column without a criticism of either a referee or the judges, of course, so we may as well start there.

MMA Fans, Refs Give New Meaning to “Stand-Up Guy”

I’ve previously lamented the attention spans of MMA referees, which seem to shorten more and more as time goes by. Hasty stand-ups and separations from the clinch have become the exception rather than the rule, especially with certain referees (see: Miragliotta, Dan).

It was Miragliotta who did his best to hand Dave Huckaba a victory in his heavyweight matchup against Damian Grabowski on Friday night, repeatedly standing up and separating the fighters after brief periods of grappling throughout the fight. The most egregious stand-up came in the third round, where after exactly one minute on the mat- a minute where Grabowski threw over 35 strikes from within Huckaba’s guard, mind you- Miragliotta stood the fight up when Huckaba had little chance to stand up on his own. Huckaba went on to get the better of the action on the feet throughout the rest of the round, winning the round and making the eventual decision much closer than it had to be.

Three problems with quick stand-ups (in my opinion, “quick” means after less than two minutes in a position, unless in extreme circumstances where a fighter is literally doing nothing- throwing 35 strikes in one minute against an opponent who is only holding on for dear life is not “doing nothing):

1) In a striker vs. grappler matchup, quick stand-ups give a clear and unacceptable advantage to the striker. Why should he get to stand up if he can’t do it on his own? If he is passive on the feet and simply stops takedown attempts without throwing strikes, the referee doesn’t put the fight on the mat, does he? Takedown attempts expose you to counter-strikes and sap a lot of energy out of you, and referee stand-ups show additional favoritism to strikers by making grapplers work twice as hard to put the fight where they want it.

2) Quick stand-ups reward the “strategy” of simply holding on for dear life with a closed guard while on the bottom. That’s not a valid strategy, in my opinion. The fight should not be stood up when someone is doing this unless the top fighter is not striking or looking to improve position whatsoever.

3) These hasty stand-ups encourage and validate the booing of “fans” who cannot tolerate even 45 seconds of relative inaction in a fight. Everyone who boos after a half-minute stalemate on the mat should be made to get on the mat with another person of his or her size. Then, they should be told to pass guard or land a decent strike within 30 seconds when all the person on the bottom is doing is holding on and stalling. Try it. It’s not easy. Doubly so when your opponent is a professional fighter with great endurance and strength.

Why on earth should we cater to fans who only come to see stand-up fights? We have those sports already; they are called boxing and kickboxing. Can you imagine if, in the NFL, a winning team who was grinding out the clock by running the ball was told by the head referee that because their strategy wasn’t exciting enough, they were being forced to attempt a pass on their next play? MMA is literally the only major sport where referees are allowed to alter the course of a contest with the main reason being that the action isn’t “exciting” enough.

MMA not only survived, but thrived back in the day when there were no time limits, no stand-ups, etc. Now, I don’t want to go back to those days, but if fans who had very little understanding of the sport could learn to appreciate the extremely methodical ground games of Royce Gracie or Dan Severn, why can’t we expect more of today’s fans and referees? Why should we take away the valid strategy of grinding down an opponent? Simply because it’s not always the most exciting way to fight?

A referee’s job should NOT be to have a direct effect on the outcome of a fight. By separating fighters after less than a minute of time in a specific position, especially when the offensive fighter is clearly working for something, referees have a huge effect on the outcome and show favoritism to the fighter who is stuck in a position that he or she cannot escape from on their own. Unless the top fighter is clearly stalling, the referee needs to stay out of it and let the fighters decide the outcome for themselves. If you can’t mount an offense off of your back or stand up after you are taken down, that’s on you, not anyone else.

Quick Shots

–You have to give props to Bellator’s production crew for their inspired Bob Ross/Ben Saunders moment during the hype video before the Saunders-Bryan Baker fight. Great stuff and brilliantly done. Bellator, for a long time now, has been a big league show not only in terms of the quality of its fighters, but also the production team and commentary team of Jimmy Smith and Sean Wheelock.

–Speaking of Smith, kudos to him for correctly noting that “the crowd starts booing; the referee’s gonna stand it up” during the Grabowski-Huckaba fight. I do wish he had accompanied that legitimate point with a criticism of said practice, however. Why should the ref ever do anything because of fan reactions? Another good observation in the same fight was that Huckaba, even though he appeared to be behind, was only throwing one punch at a time and often backing off after a successful shot. His lack of urgency certainly didn’t help his cause, whether it was caused by actual complacency or a deficiency of cardio.

–Kudos to Ryan Ford for a ballsy performance against a very game Luis Santos, as Ford got the comeback win. Santos showed an excellent Thai clinch, while Ford is clearly also adept at knees from the clinch. Both showed good killer instincts with their well-timed pressure when the other was hurt, but Ford simply was the one who got it done. Great fight.

Beautiful Loser Award

I’ll give this one to Ben Saunders, who may not have had his best performance against Bryan Baker, but still had his moments, particularly with a very crafty triangle-to-armbar transition in the first stanza. Saunders never stopped going for it, particularly off of his back, which you have to appreciate it.

Movin’ On Up Award

Meanwhile, Baker showed a nice all-around game and great submission defense while defeating Saunders by a healthy margin in a unanimous decision. Baker has already improved upon his performance from the Season 5 middleweight tournament, where he was quickly beaten by Vitor Vianna in the semifinal round. He looked much more comfortable in his most recent fight at welterweight than in his first bout at 170 pounds and has a good shot at winning the whole tournament.

Holy $#!% Award

If you thought I forgot Michael Chandler, you were mistaken. I just don’t know what else to say except for, “Damn, that boy’s good!” Akihiro Gono is not an elite opponent, but is also not usually a very easy out. He’s got some legitimate wins and looked focused and ready on Friday night, but it just didn’t matter. Chandler is as dialed in as any elite MMA fighter in the sport right now, and it showed as he landed a great straight right and followed it up with a flurry of ground strikes that showcased his excellent hand speed and aggression. The man’s a beast.

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Nate Diaz talks about his guillotine submission win over Jim Miller at UFC on Fox 3.

Johny Hendricks talks about his split decision win over Josh Koscheck at UFC on Fox 3.

Alan Belcher talks about his impressive round 1 TKO win over Rousimar Palhares at UFC on Fox 3.

Lavar Johnson talks about his first round TKO win over Pat Barry at UFC on Fox 3.

Here’s the UFC on Fox: Diaz vs. Miller post-fight press conference.

Following fighters were awarded $65,000 bonuses:

Fight of the Night: Louis Gaudinot vs. John Lineker
Knockout of the Night: Lavar Johnson
Submission of the Night: Nate Diaz