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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Pat Barry vs. Lavar Johnson

Barry may just be the best 4-4 fighter in UFC history. At least two of those fights that went down as losses had him in control of the action before he somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Barry has been accused of everything from a lack of killer instinct to a lack of dedication in his training and yeah, nutrition as well.

Johnson is making his second UFC appearance after a pretty good recent run. He won three of five in Strikeforce (though he dropped his last two appearances) before knocking out Joey Beltran in his UFC debut. Beltran is tough as nails, so that’s a real achievement and shows you the kind of power that Johnson has. Obviously, this fight features two very capable heavyweights, and so comes down to execution.

I actually think Barry’s often-passive approach will work for him here. He will need to be more cautious in the early goings and pick away at Johnson with leg kicks and smart combinations. Johnson could either rage out on Barry and take his chances or get suckered into a more methodical approach. I think either suits Barry, as long as he’s smart enough not to get suckered into an all-out slugfest. With heavyweights, that kind of situation might as well be a coin flip, since the outcome mainly defends on whose powerful punch lands on the button first.

On the mat, Barry would not be in as much trouble as people think. I do think he’s a bit of a front-runner and could be worn down if Johnson can grind on him a bit, but I think Barry’s usage of distance and defensive wrestling makes that fairly unlikely.

Prediction: Barry by KO/TKO

Alan Belcher vs. Rousimar Palhares

I was a big believer in Belcher pre-injury, and even in his return against Jason MacDonald after a long layoff, I thought he looked better than expected. The UFC must have agreed, because they gave him a fight against another middleweight who is knocking on the door of the top ten rankings, Rousimar Palhares.

While Belcher depends on his leg kicks to keep opponents off balance, Palhares simply looks to prey upon the legs of his opponents. Palhares is fresh off yet another win by vicious heel hook, which makes it four of his last five bouts that he has won with that particularly devastating submission.

When someone at this level of competition is able to continue succeeding with the same submission hold despite the fact that his opponents absolutely know he’s looking for it, it’s a pretty impressive thing. The thing is, Palhares sets up his heel hooks beautifully either by pretending to be focused on top control or just clocking his opponents while standing before using the ensuing scramble to get their leg.

Just as Barry needs to against Johnson, Belcher has to control distance. However, Belcher’s situation is much more dire, as Palhares is absolutely deadly on the mat. While Belcher is no slouch himself, he simply isn’t going to fend off Palhares indefinitely should they hit the mat. Also, keeping Palhares off of you is a difficult task. Palhares is always moving forward, and though his striking is unrefined, he packs some power in his strikes. In the end, I think Palhares will survive some sharp striking by Belcher en route to a submission win.

Prediction: Palhares by submission

Johny Hendricks (#5 WW) vs. Josh Koscheck (#4 WW)

Something happened to Koscheck in his title shot with Georges St. Pierre. I think St. Pierre fundamentally broke Koscheck, turning him into a wary striker who is ultimately too concerned about counter-strikes to really commit to his offense. For evidence, watch Koscheck’s fight with Mike Pierce, where Koscheck looked jumpy, uncomfortable, and just plain cautious as he occasionally threw single shots, hoping they’d land.

Koscheck has always been a guy who likes to load up one punch at a time (or at least, he has been since he realized he has concussive power in his right hand), but with his newfound timidity, he’s decidedly less dangerous than before. Meanwhile, Hendricks is a tough matchup whether Koscheck is on his game or not. Hendricks packs power just like Koscheck does, but is a more dynamic striker who throws combinations instead of easily-detected single haymakers. There is absolutely no question here that Hendricks is the better striker, though the threat of Koscheck landing a Hail Mary shot is always a possibility.

The wrestling is pretty close here. I think Kos is a better pure wrestler, but Hendricks may have better defensive wrestling and transitions between his striking and his shots. It doesn’t hurt that since Hendricks’ striking is less predictable, his shots are therefore harder to see coming. Either way, I see this being a largely standup battle, which isn’t something Koscheck is likely to win. This may be the start of a downward slide for Koscheck. The safe pick is Hendricks by decision, but I’ll select a more explosive method of victory.

Prediction: Hendricks by KO/TKO

Nate Diaz (#9 LW) vs. Jim Miller (#6 LW)

So, while we know that Anthony Pettis is (once again) “next in line” for a title shot, whoever wins this should be next-in-”next in line”, right?

Nope. UFC President and Czar of Irrefutable Logic Dana White said that if Diaz wins, he will be in line for a title shot, while Miller will be “a fight or two away”. Wait, what?!?

Diaz has won exactly two fights in a row since back to back losses against Rory MacDonald and Dong Hyun Kim. In fact, you have to go back to Nate’s first five UFC fights in 2007 and 2008 to find a time where he won more than two fights in a row inside the Octagon. In fact, since that promising run to start his UFC career, he’s gone a mediocre 5-5.

Then you have Miller, who is 10-2 in his UFC career, with his only losses being against two guys you may have heard of- Gray Maynard and, more recently, Ben Henderson. Since the Maynard loss, Miller has won 8 out of 9 UFC fights. Sure, the Henderson loss was only two fights ago, but a) Henderson is the current champ, for God’s sake, and b) the guy’s won 8 out of 9 fights!

Dana’s right, one of these guys should still be one or two fights away from a title shot, but it’s not Miller who should be- it’s Diaz. So Miller is apparently in the Jon Fitch Doghouse where you have to win more than a half-dozen fights in a row to earn a title shot, while Diaz’s path appears to be a bit more…”Dan Hardy”-like? Whatever. Nobody ever said this was anything but “sports entertainment”, right? Ahem.

Either way, I guess Diaz has to get past Miller to get a title shot, and I do agree he’ll have earned one if he does get by Miller. I just also think Miller deserves one if he beats Diaz, that’s all. Can Diaz do it? Well, Diaz figures to use about the same strategy he always does, which is to pursue Miller and frustrate him with a slightly-different approach to the high volume striking attack that his brother Nick has perfected.

However, Miller is no slouch in the standup. I haven’t forgotten him out-striking Duane “Bang” Ludwig in their UFC 108 matchup, and Diaz better not have, either. Miller is a fundamentally sound, relatively no-frills striker who is all about intelligent, well-timed combinations. He has a little power to him, but doesn’t sell out to land the kinds of glorious power shots that his contemporaries often chase after. He’s like Diaz in that way.

Diaz doesn’t have the striking accuracy that he needs to really take his standup to the next level, and he lacks the cumulative power that his brother packs in his deceptively harmless looking strikes, too. On the mat, he’s very dangerous, especially when on his back, but Miller is smart enough to stay out of trouble and may not look to take him down in the early goings, anyway. I don’t think Diaz will have enough to keep Miller off of him, and as a result, Miller wins a competitive but clear decision in a fight that rarely, if ever, goes to the floor.

Prediction: Miller by decision

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FLYWEIGHT DIVISION (125 LBS.)

1. Ian McCall
2. Joseph Benavidez
3. Demetrious Johnson
4. Jussier Da Silva
5. Yasuhiro Urushitani
6. Louis Gaudinot
7. John Lineker
8. Darrell Montague
9. Mamoru Yamaguchi
10. Dustin Ortiz (NR)

Dropped out: Yuki Shojo (10)

Nothing going on here in April. Shojo drops out because he will now be fighting at 115 pounds. Yes, 115 pounds. Where does it end? 105 pounds? 95 pounds? Let’s make a 45 pound class and let kids fight, for God’s sake!

Fortunately, business will pick up here soon. This weekend, Dustin Ortiz (who took Shojo’s spot) takes on Josh Robinson, while Darrell Montague will face Taylor McCorriston at Tachi Palace Fights 13 on May 10. Gaudinot and Lineker will scrap at UFC on Fox 3, while McCall will rematch Mighty Mouse on June 8 so that the UFC flyweight tournament can get moving again.

BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 LBS.)

1. Dominick Cruz
2. Urijah Faber
3. Renan Barao
4. Scott Jorgensen (5)
5. Brian Bowles (6)
6. Michael McDonald (NR)
7. Miguel Torres (4)
8. Brad Pickett
9. Eduardo Dantas (NR)
10. Bibiano Fernandes (9)

Dropped out: Masakatsu Ueda, Zach Makovsky

There was a lot of great action at 135 pounds in April, and it’s reflected in the changes here. In Bellator, it was all about established names dropping bouts as Ueda lost to Travis Marx and Makovsky lost his bantamweight title in decisive fashion to the young Dantas. Dantas enters the mix at number nine as a result. Meanwhile, McDonald showed why he’s so highly regarded this early in his career with a startling knockout of Torres, who drops three spots. I suspect McDonald will earn himself a spot in the top three by the end of the calendar year.

Of course, the top two here will face off on July 7, following he first live season of The Ultimate Fighter. Barao will face Ivan Menjivar at UFC 148, which is a strange, hopefully brief respite from elite competition after a win over Scott Jorgensen. Jorgensen will take on Eddie Wineland on June 8.

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 LBS.)

1. Jose Aldo
2. Chad Mendes
3. Pat Curran
4. Hatsu Hioki
5. Kenny Florian
6. Marlon Sandro
7. Dustin Poirier (8)
8. Patricio “Pitbull” Freire
9. Dennis Siver (NR)
10. Diego Nunes (7)

Dropped out: Chan Sung Jung (NR)

Marlon Sandro won a fight in a second straight month as part of Bellator’s featherweight tournament, slipping by Alexandre Bezerra with a split decision victory. He’ll face Daniel Straus on May 11 with the tournament championship and a shot at the title on the line. Meanwhile, Dennis Siver enters the featherweight top ten with an impressive win over Diego Nunes during his debut at 145 pounds. Nunes drops to tenth and Chan Sung Jung drops just outside of the top ten with Siver’s entry.

Poirier will give Jung a chance to re-enter the fold at UFC on Fuel 3 in May. Meanwhile, Jose Aldo has his next dance partner- Erik Koch (13-1), most recently seen defeating Jonathan Brookins way back in September. They’ll face off in Canada in July. Hioki, who didn’t feel ready to face Aldo just yet, will take on Ricardo Lamas in June.

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (155 LBS.)

1. Ben Henderson
2. Frankie Edgar
3. Gilbert Melendez
4. Gray Maynard
5. Anthony Pettis
6. Jim Miller (7)
7. Michael Chandler (8)
8. Eddie Alvarez (9)
9. Nate Diaz (10)
10. Donald Cerrone (NR)

Dropped out: Shinya Aoki (6)

Aoki once again looked first confused, then dazed when he couldn’t convince Alvarez to play “crank the limb” on the mat with him and was ultimately battered to a referee stoppage as a result. Aoki is simply too one-dimensional to be on this list, as I think most, if not all, of these fighters would defeat him if given the chance. His exit allows Donald Cerrone to rejoin the group at the back of the line.

Edgar and Henderson fight again this summer. Melendez will face Josh Thomson in May in what will hopefully be Melendez’s last Strikeforce fight. Meanwhile, Miller and Diaz will clash in May at UFC on Fox 3. Michael Chandler takes on Akihiro Gono in a non-title fight on May 4, while Maynard will face Clay Guida in June. Donald Cerrone will scrap with Jeremy Stephens in what should be a barn burner on May 15.

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170 LBS.)

1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Carlos Condit
3. Nick Diaz
4. Josh Koscheck
5. Johny Hendricks
6. Jon Fitch
7. Jake Shields
8. Nate Marquardt
9. Jake Ellenberger
10. BJ Penn

Nothing happened this month, but that changes in May when Koscheck takes on Hendricks. If Koscheck doesn’t look significantly better than he did in his last fight, he’ll be in serious trouble. Diaz is busy fighting with the Nevada Athletic Commission, while St. Pierre continues to wait for his body to heal in anticipation of a showdown with Condit. Jon Fitch has a tough, but winnable fight against Aaron Simpson scheduled for July.

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185 LBS.)

1. Anderson Silva
2. Chael Sonnen
3. Vitor Belfort
4. Mark Munoz
5. Yushin Okami
6. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza
7. Hector Lombard
8. Luke Rockhold
9. Brian Stann
10. Michael Bisping

Stann carved through Alessio Sakara, but faces Hector Lombard in August in Lombard’s UFC debut. That’s a fan service bout if I’ve ever heard of one, and should be a very memorable fight. There’s also Munoz vs. prospect Chris Weidman in July to look forward to, as well as Belfort facing Wanderlei Silva at the conclusion of TUF: Brazil. Bipsing fights Tim Boetsch in July, while Okami tries to get back on the horse against Luiz Cane in August. Also, there’s this fight you may have heard about in July between some guy named Anderson Silva and another dude named Chael Sonnen. All in all, a huge summer is coming up for the middleweight division.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205 LBS.)

1. Jon Jones
2. Rashad Evans
3. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
4. Dan Henderson
5. Lyoto Machida
6. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
7. Gegard Mousasi
8. Ryan Bader
9. Phil Davis
10. Alexander Gustafsson

Jones defeated Evans with relative ease, though he wasn’t able (or maybe willing) to put him away within the 25-minute time limit. Evans gave a strong performance and still belongs in the second spot, in my view. Meanwhile, Gustafsson was impressive in some respects against Thiago Silva, but was too hittable for my liking. I think he needs a decent amount of development yet, and I don’t think he proved himself to be better than the man a spot higher than him, Phil Davis.

Next up for Jones is Henderson, which will go down at some point this year. Shogun will not face Rampage as previously speculated, but Thiago Silva at UFC 149 in July. In August, Machida takes on Bader in a must-win fight for both, but Machida in particular.

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (265 LBS.)

1. Junior dos Santos
2. Cain Velasquez
3. Alistair Overeem
4. Fabricio Werdum
5. Frank Mir
6. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
7. Josh Barnett
8. Daniel Cormier
9. Fedor Emelianenko
10. Shane Carwin

All the action here happened outside of the cage, as Overeem was forced to withdraw from his fight with dos Santos due to elevated testosterone levels that he blamed on an anti-inflammatory medication that he took for an injury. Mir will gladly step in for him in what is a decidedly less exciting matchup. Therefore, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva will face Velasquez, which I think is a pretty good fight. In Strikeforce news, Barnett and Cormier will finally complete the epic odyssey that was the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix in May. Still no word on a return for Carwin, though Nogueira is training and wants to fight in 2012.

POUND-FOR-POUND (No Limit)

1. Anderson Silva
2. Jon Jones (3)
3. Georges St. Pierre (2)
4. Frankie Edgar
5. Jose Aldo
6. Dominick Cruz
7. BJ Penn
8. Dan Henderson
9. Joseph Benavidez
10. Ian McCall (NR)

Dropped out: Rashad Evans (10)

I moved Jones up for a number of reasons:

-Better opponents in his last several fights than St. Pierre,
-More dominant performances in those fights than St. Pierre, and
-The troubling recent inactivity due to injury that has stalled GSP’s momentum (to a lesser extent than the other two factors).

Meanwhile, Ian McCall moves up to take Evans’ place. Yes, he’s the number one flyweight in the world, yet ranked lower than Benavidez on the P4P rankings. That’s because Benavidez was the number two fighter in the world for years at 135 pounds, which was clearly ten pounds heavier than his best weight.

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When someone, saaaayyyy Alistair Overeem (just off the top of my head here, of course), decides that they aren’t satisfied with failing the ever-tricky urine tests that the Nevada Athletic Commission trusts to keep our sport free of steroid-addled monsters, you can always bet that some amusement will ensue. How many times has someone fought against a NAC urine test result and avoided a penalty? None. How many times has one of these fighters come up with a better excuse than “I didn’t know that _____ was in the supplement/medicine I was taking” or “I had to get through this injury, so I took a chance so I could fight” (which is much more honest and commendable)? About the same number.

Overeem was no exception, showing up at the NAC hearing with a lawyer and a “doctor” (more on him later) just to tell the NAC that, you guessed it, he took an anti-inflammatory agent that contained testostere, unbeknownst to him. Now, Alistair seems like a good enough guy, and I enjoy watching him fight. If he would have told me or seemingly any other MMA fighter, writer or fan (that pays attention) on the planet that this was what he was going to say, we would have told him not to waste his time.

Still, there he was, asking for leniency because, among other things, he didn’t use the last of the multiple doses that his quack of a doctor gave him. That’s like saying you should get off with probation after an armed robbery if you leave a couple of bags of cash in the vault. “I didn’t even take all the money, Your Honor!”

Predictably, the NAC said, “Mr. Overeem, your excuse is neither original nor effective. It has never worked and will never work, and you have wasted not only your time, but the time of everyone here today by even using this awful strategy to get out of punishment. Furthermore, your choice of doctors, like seemingly every athlete ever linked to performance-enhancing substances, is absolutely awful.”

Or something like that. That isn’t really the actual quote (ahem…), but you get the point.

But I don’t want to focus on Overeem. Instead, let’s talk about this guy, this “doctor” that he hired and essentially entrusted his career to. Let’s see what even a simple Google search reveals about this trusted medical professional who Overeem allowed to put a mysterious substance in his body, apparently without signing anything to show he even understood what was in said substance.

The “doctor”, Hector Molina, was:

-arrested and charged in 1998 with “felony theft of $1,500 or more“,

-subjected to a fine and sanctions in 2004 for “prescribing controlled substances and dangerous drugs [including anabolic steroids- Ed.]over the Internet without establishing ‘a proper physician-patient relationship’”,

-fined for “failure to cooperate with an investigation” in 2009,

-arrested for “family violence” in an “assault that caused bodily harm” in 2010,

-sent two plastic surgery patients to the ER in 2011 after botched surgeries (Molina confirmed he is not board certified for plastic surgery, which you do not have to be, apparently).

Now, that’s a guy that you absolutely, one-hundred percent trust when he wants to shoot you up with a vial of…whatever. I mean, don’t even ask what’s in it. It’s Dr. Molina, right? No worries!

On top of all this, he was awful in the hearing, first saying he didn’t tell Overeem what was in the mixture, then saying that he thought he did inform Overeem of what was in it. Hopefully, this will be a lesson for not only Overeem, but for all professional athletes to check into their doctors and also make sure that they know what they’re putting into their bodies.

As a last side note, the NAC will allow Overeem to re-apply for a license in nine months instead of the customary one year, so they obviously were convinced somewhat by Overeem’s account of the events. I know the court of public opinion is predictably harsh on someone with Overeem’s build, but it’s worth reiterating that he didn’t test positive for a steroid and the NAC thought enough of his explanation to cut the wait before he can theoretically fight again by 25%.

Nick Diaz Goes on the Offensive Against the NAC

Nick Diaz has not had a good 2012, first losing a decision to Carlos Condit (and thus, his opportunity to face Georges St. Pierre for the UFC Welterweight Championship), then losing his right to fight at all after being suspended for testing positive for marijuana metabolites following the bout.

The suspension was pending a disciplinary hearing that hasn’t even happened yet, which is apparently one of the reasons for the lawsuit he just filed. In it, Diaz requests relief from his suspension and future disciplinary action while alleging that his license has been suspended unlawfully and without due process. You may have heard recently that the NAC revealed that Diaz would not be heard at the most recent NAC meeting, effectively leaving Diaz in limbo.

Diaz’s aggressive response to the suspension has been interesting to follow, as well as fairly appropriate given the type of person he is. If you’d expect anyone to stick to his guns, it would be Diaz, and he clearly believes that he has a strong case here. While what will happen with the lawsuit is anybody’s guess; in regard to the actual urine test results, Diaz’s team says that since “marijuana metabolites are not a banned substance under NAC 487.850″, he should not be subject to disciplinary action.

Another interesting question: this means Diaz plans to fight again, right? Why bother to fight the suspension if you aren’t going to compete? There is the matter that he could be fined if they didn’t fight the suspension, and he obviously wouldn’t want that, even if he was going to truly retire. However, I never bought into the impromptu post-fight retirement announcement as anything other than sour grapes, and this has only supported that belief.

Lombard Finally Headed to the UFC

Promotions like Bellator Fighting Championships are in a tight spot sometimes when it comes to housing quality talent. If you have a division like lightweight, where there are plenty of very good fighters in your employ, you can keep your best fighters pretty busy. In the case of someone like Hector Lombard, the frustration must have been akin to that of a gifted student who is forced to study material that he or she has already mastered within minutes, simply because the other students aren’t ready to move on.

Bellator couldn’t challenge Lombard regularly, who in recent years has had one-sided wins over Trevor Prangley, Falaniko Vitale, Herbert Goodman, Jay Silva, Jared Hess, James Stelly, and Virgil Lozano. He went outside of Bellator to fight Jesse Taylor and Joe Doerksen, which shows that Lombard felt the need to fight outside of Bellator to stay busy. Lombard’s lone fight that went the distance in his Bellator tenure was against Alexander Shlemenko, and though the fight was underwhelming, Lombard still won four rounds out of five. The one he lost was more due to inactivity than anything great that Shlemenko did.

That’s three years in Bellator for a top ten-level middleweight in some of the better years of his career (ages 31-34). During that time, he won a Bellator championship but faced a grand total of zero top ten opponents. How is that not a waste?

I want Bellator to succeed, but when extremely talented fighters there are stuck in weight classes where there is literally no one to challenge them whatsoever, it’s really kind of a tragedy. Now we get a 34-year old Lombard, who has a scant few years to show us what he can do against real quality opposition. Who knows where he could have been at this point if he had been facing fighters who could really push him? He may not have done as well as his biggest fans (among them, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney) assume he would have, but at least we’d actually know.

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Prospects Steal the Show from Jones, Evans

One thing that really impresses me about how the UFC does things is that when they have high profile main events, they pack the rest of the main card with up and coming fighters that a lot of fans may be less familiar with. With a fight like Jones-Evans, the UFC doesn’t have to fill the main card with UFC mainstays and former champions, so they intelligently use the opportunity to get a lot of eyes on their future stars, instead.

At UFC 145, you saw Rory MacDonald and Michael “Not The Guy Who Ruined The Doobie Brothers” McDonald each step up to the proverbial plate and knock the ball out of the park. MacDonald looked outstanding in his dominant win over the underrated Che Mills, while McDonald looked even better in his own explosive victory over former WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres.

McDonald in particular showed a kind of aggression that you can imagine could only come from being saddled with a lifetime of jokes about “Yah Mo B There” as he savagely dispatched of a man that was once known as the best bantamweight on the planet. Myself and many others who think that Torres still has plenty left in the tank thought that this fight might have been a touch too early for McDonald, even if we believed that he had the makings of a future champ at 135 pounds. McDonald proved all of us wrong with a resounding right uppercut and follow-up punches to hand Torres another debilitating setback.

Can Hendo Give Jones a Challenge?

Dan Henderson is next for Jon Jones, and it’s a real testament to Jones’ prodigious ability that most people don’t seem to think that Hendo has more than a puncher’s chance to dethrone the champ. Count me among the skeptics, as much as I admire Hendo and think that he’s an all-time great. When you look at Henderson, he doesn’t have a whole lot more to offer than what Quinton “Rampage” Jackson or Rashad Evans did. I would argue that Hendo has more one punch power than either of the two, and his offensive wrestling is better than Rampage’s for sure.

However, he rarely relies on his wrestling background and he depends a lot on catching opponents with his tried and true overhand right. That’s great in a lot of bouts, but against a striker with the kind of length and dynamic offense that Jones brings to the table, I just don’t know that it will be enough. I’ll elaborate more when the fight actually arrives (Hendo may catch a bit of a break if Jones rushes back to action at UFC 149 in Calgary, Alberta…Canada, but I still don’t think it’ll be enough), but I stand by my earlier assertion that Jones won’t be losing to anyone at 205 pounds in the foreseeable future.

Quick Shots

–It’s hard not to feel a bit bad for Mark Hominick, who’s had three tough losses in a row now. True, he should beat someone like Eddie Yagin, but Hominick proved in that fight that balls the size of grapefruits while coming back from the brink of defeat in each of the first two rounds, then winning the third stanza. Color me surprised by Yagin’s overall standup and impressive power, though.

–I decried the hasty comparisons between Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones in a recent column, and I’ll happily do the same with those between Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and Lyoto Machida. Look, I see the vague similarities between Gustafsson and Jones, but the difference in accomplishments and actual fighting styles are too much to ignore. With Thompson and Machida, I can see why you may lump the two together as the poster boys for traditional martial arts in the UFC, but Thompson hasn’t come close to earning such a comparison.

Look no further than his fight with Matt Brown, who is a tough out for anyone but nonetheless a gatekeeper, for all the evidence you need. Machida got where he is largely because he is infamously hard to take down, which frustratingly forces opponents to play his game. Brown was able to take Thompson down with shots from way outside that he didn’t even set up particularly well. That ended up costing Thompson the fight, as the grappling portions of the bout wore him out enough that later on, when Brown was also gassed, he didn’t have enough in the tank to continue his flashy and effective striking.

–You think you know a guy, and then he comes into the cage in ridiculous shape and reminds you of the vicious power that made him a favorite of hardcore MMA fans years ago. Well done, Ben Rothwell. Well done.

–Yes, the Chad Griggs fight made me a little sad. Is it so wrong to want to see a dude rocking chops like that have a little success?

Adventures in Refereeing

Referee Mario Yamasaki either changed his definition of illegal strikes to the back of the head (and his philosophy of penalizing such strikes) since the famous Carlo Prater-Erick Silva bout, or he let all of the fan backlash get to him. Hopefully, for the integrity of the sport, it was the former and not the latter, because it looked to me as if Rory MacDonald was just as bad, if not worse, than Silva was when he finished off Che Mills. Now, I know the DQ in the Silva bout was not popular, but at the same time, referees should not ref toward the preferences of the fans. That’s not their job, though you see it all the time in the form of quick stand-ups when the fans are booing, etc. It’s weird that MacDonald’s barrage at the end of the fight didn’t even warrant a verbal warning from Yamasaki.

Movin’ On Up Award

There were a lot of fighters to choose from, but I’ll go with Michael McDonald after his stunning win over Miguel Torres. Not so stunning because he won, of course, but in the devastating way that he brought an end to the bout. McDonald now positions himself as a true player in a bantamweight division that can use some fresh contenders.

Beautiful Loser Award

I’m going with Mark Hominick here. Some may say Rashad Evans, because he may have stolen a round from Jon Jones (I personally still think Jones won the first round), but should winning one round in a five round title fight that was characterized by a lack of activity in the final few rounds win you praise? Should merely surviving win you praise? Hominick not only survived, but won the final round and made you think that in a five round fight, he probably would have emerged the victor. It could have been a ten round fight and I wouldn’t have favored Evans after what we saw.

Holy $#!& Award

After much deliberation, this goes to Ben Rothwell. There’s just something about heavyweights where even when they’re half-conscious, you don’t want to give them any chance to hit you on the button. Brendan Schaub made that mistake and he paid the price, as Rothwell turned the table in vicious fashion and knocked Schaub out cold.

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Okay, I can imagine Mauro Ranallo saying that with a straight face, which gives me immediate and strong feelings of guilt. Let’s just move on.

Alvarez Leads Stoppage Parade With Quick Work of Aoki

Eddie Alvarez, who is still one of the best lightweights in the world regardless of his lost last year to Michael Chandler, again shined a spotlight on Shinya Aoki’s glaring weaknesses in both wrestling and standup technique during their brief scrap on Friday night. Just as he did with Gilbert Melendez in his ill-fated Strikeforce appearance two years ago (nearly to the day), Aoki resorted to butt-scooting on the mat and inviting- begging, almost- Alvarez to come play his game.

Of course, why would he? Aoki’s deficiencies in the standup game are well-documented, and even if Alvarez is confident in his ability on the mat, there’s no reason to put yourself in the one place where your opponent is extremely dangerous. So Alvarez battered Aoki with two huge uppercuts and finished him off against the cage as Aoki simply covered up and waited for referee intervention. I don’t know how much longer Aoki’s fans can blindly argue that he is an elite lightweight when he is so deficient in multiple areas of mixed martial arts. It’s got to be disappointing for Aoki, too, as he knows he won’t get that many chances to prove himself against top-tier talent. Aoki did say he’d like to fight in Bellator again, but to what extent is still unknown.

Alvarez gains some redemption and gets to relish a rare victory over a top ten opponent from within the confines of the Bellator cage; Aoki simply returns to where he was two years ago, having missed his own opportunity to prove his worth against a top ten lightweight on American soil. His skeptics, myself included, will likely not be quieted by another seven-fight win streak over the usual crop of Japanese mainstays and North American journeymen this time around.

Though Alvarez had the most notable win on Friday, he actually did not have the most memorable one, at least in terms of his method of victory. Andreas Spang backed up his bold actions at the weigh-ins with a wicked knockout of Brian Rogers in a fight that had seen Rogers taking control more and more as time elapsed. Rogers looked to have it wrapped up as Spang was rocked numerous times in the second round and was beginning to look pretty weary, but Spang still had dangerous power and uncoiled at with a vicious left hook counter that ended Rogers’ night.

There was another highlight-reel KO later in the night when Rick Hawn floored Lloyd Woodward with a right hand early in round two of their bout, leading to the feared Hammerfists of Formality that caused a referee intervention and an official end to the fight. Even on the prelims, how about Frank Caraballo defending the North American Allied Fight Series Featherweight Championship (whew!) with a flying knee that knocked out the outclassed Donny Walker in the fourth round of their title bout?

You Stay Classy

To level things out with a little controversy, there was even a little scuffle in the cage on Friday night, thanks to one Andreas Spang. Spang apparently does not enjoy having his personal space invaded, and showed us all that at the weigh-ins, where he pushed Brian Rogers. However, he wasn’t content with just that, and when Maiquel Falcao was brought in for the customary “Here’s who you’re facing next” hype non-event/fabricated staredown, Spang again couldn’t handle the proximity and gave Falcao a shove. Falcao didn’t like it and thought about throwing a punch but restrained himself before the two converged and he ended up throwing a knee before they were separated. I’m not the only one who blames Spang; he was fined $6,000 for the altercation by the athletic commission (strangely enough, he was given the option of being fined 20% of his purse or a $50 fine coupled with a six-month suspension; I’ve never heard of a fighter being given such a choice before).

You stay classy, Andreas Spang.

Movin’ On Up Award

As much as I make fun of the old “re-invent your career with a change in weight class” move, I’ll be damned if it hasn’t worked wonders for Rick Hawn. Always a solid fighter, Hawn looks like an unstoppable machine at lightweight, and has already knocked out two very good opponents in Lloyd Woodard and Ricardo Tirloni. Bellator has a seemingly endless pool of quality lightweights and Hawn is a fine addition to the crop. The final between Hawn and Brent Weedman should be a great fight.

Beautiful Loser Award

This has to go to Thiago Michel Pereira Silva, who gave Weedman a real run for his money during a split decision loss. Silva throws a lot of unconventional strikes, but he does so in a manner that is effective and makes sense, which is not so common at all. If he could have kept himself vertical a bit more throughout the fight, he’d be set for a really exciting final with Rick Hawn instead of going back to the drawing board. I’ll be looking forward to seeing him again, just the same.

Holy $#!& Award

I have to reluctantly give this to Spang, who may act a fool during staredowns, but fought with great heart and perseverance against Rogers. I suppose I could give the award to him twice; he could get it once for his actual knockout and another time for shoving yet another person who had the audacity to take part in a customary nose-to-nose staredown. Either way, you have to give him his props for what was a really impressive in-fight comeback.

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A perfect example is when someone finally lands a clean strike on Jon Jones and people go ballistic. The fans in the arena gasp, people watching in sports bars shout, tweets about it pollute the, um, Twitterverse.

And then Jones just continues as if nothing really happened.

How good is Jon Jones? So good that when someone lands a strike, fans seem to lose their minds. “He can be hit! If he can be hit, maybe he can lose! If he can lose, maybe anything is possible! I’ll finish that novel/go back to college/climb Mt. Everest/start a band/put down this Hostess fruit pie and get in shape!” People really start buying into the whole thing.

How good is Jon Jones? So good that his opponents are commended if they are able to survive. So good that after the same fight, he is condemned for not finishing said opponent in a violent and beautiful fashion. Jones is so good that when he fights, fans both applaud the mundane and expect the impossible. That’s how Rashad Evans gets props for going five rounds but largely doing very little, while Jones has gotten some heat already for not finishing Rashad with some kind of spinning back elbow or a kick out of an 80s Jean Claude Van Damme movie.

When someone reaches the level that Jones has, they are held to a higher standard, whether it’s fair or not. See also: St. Pierre, Georges and Silva, Anderson. It’s not enough for Jones to nullify his opponent’s attack or to batter his opponent with unorthodox strikes. When you pay to watch Jones fight, you’re expecting to see something amazing. Unfortunately, many fans don’t understand that tooling Rashad Evans the way he did is a remarkable feat in itself.

Some quick thoughts about the main event from UFC 145:

–Where Jones sometimes holds himself back is in his tendency to either overthink things or to try to hard to appear to be a master strategist like his coach, Greg Jackson (depending on whom you ask). Jones pulling guard late in the fifth round against Evans was a perfect example. You were worried about the overhand right that Evans had landed at about a 5% clip throughout the night, so you pulled guard and let him try to tee off on you for a few seconds? Okaaaaay.

He often doesn’t stick with what’s working in favor of changing techniques- one round, he’s throwing mostly kicks, the next, mostly elbows from the “patty-cake” position, later on, he’s shuffling around like Ali. I’m not sure if he’s convinced that he’s keeping opponents off-guard, if he’s just entertaining himself, or if he wants to show people that he can do just about whatever he wants out there. Still, I can’t help but think that if he had stayed with a more rudimentary attack focused on elbows and punching combinations against the fence, he would have finished Evans.

–Re: the sense of disappointment many fans have from the fight, which may be either totally justified or completely ridiculous, depending on your viewpoint, I think it has to do with the trajectory that the fight took on. The first round was slower, with Evans less active but landing the best shots. Then, in the second and third rounds, Jones kicked it up several notches, hurt Evans multiple times and really looked to have him in trouble. At that point, you’re thinking, “There’s no way this goes all five rounds.” In the fourth and fifth rounds, there was suddenly a lot- a lot- of the two men simply standing in front of one another, doing a whole lot of nothing. Jones didn’t appear tired, yet he wasn’t pursuing a finish with the kind of aggressiveness as he did before.

In fights like that, where someone gets in trouble early and often, then the last couple of rounds are uneventful, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the victorious fighter carried the losing fighter to a decision. I had the same feeling upon watching Jones-Evans. You think that things will naturally continue to build and progress towards an inevitable conclusion, and it just doesn’t happen. On some level, it’s just less satisfying.

–No one yet has put together a compelling game plan against Jon Jones. So far it’s been a lot of “walk towards him and get hit” or “circle around and stay on the outside where he can hit me more easily than I can hit him”, really. However, it’s fairly clear that the one real hope opponents have is the old puncher’s chance. To that end, Dan Henderson is at least a decent opponent. If Alexander Gustafsson can’t step it up another couple of levels soon, Hendo may very well be Jones’ last real test in the light heavyweight division. We hear all the time about fighters “cleaning out” divisions, but Jones may be one of the few to actually do it.

–It’s always hard to criticize the losing fighter when he gives a pretty good effort and gets through some very dicey moments like Rashad did, and it’s certainly too easy to watch a fight and question a million and one things about the losing fighter’s approach. Having said that, it seemed like Rashad was playing Jones’ game throughout the fight tonight. From engaging him in the weird pattycake/80s WWF “test of strength” thing he had going on to conveniently staying at the range Jones seems to prefer, Rashad didn’t do a whole lot to really frustrate Jones tonight. Furthermore, Mike Van Arsdale talked about Rashad pushing the pace to not allow Jones to settle in and fight a comfortable, methodical style, and that didn’t happen at all. In both of Rashad’s career losses, his game plan has been sorely lacking- or at least, his execution of it has. He seems to get stuck on the outside and ends up not sure what to do. It happened with Lyoto Machida and it happened again with Jones tonight.

Overall, it was a very solid night of action, and the main event answered any remaining questions most people have about Jones. Who beats him in the light heavyweight division? Likely nobody does.

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