Jones Beats Vera on a Strange Night of Fights

It was rightfully touted as a night full of “fight of the year” candidates, but it ended up being a night full of very weird happenings, instead. Sure, the action was good in all of the televised fights, but you are unlikely to see a card that’s similar to this one for years. How so? Well, how about:

–Not one, but two fighters having points taken away for fouls within the four main card bouts alone (Cheick Kongo for kneeing Paul Buentello’s head when he was down, and Brandon Vera for upkicking Jon Jones’ face from the guard when Jones was grounded).

–Having a fighter get fouled and told by the referee his opponent wouldn’t be punished because he was “playing the game” (Buentello on a second illegal knee, which was caused because Buentello craftily put a hand down at the last second to become a grounded fighter).

–Seeing a fighter (Buentello) tap out due to elbows…to the thigh.

–In the same fight, Kongo was warned for throwing downward, “12 to 6″ elbow strikes to Buentello’s…ass, of all things.

–Watching a fighter (Buentello again!) get a quick break to tend to a dislocated finger, which he appeared to be trying to “pop back in place”, all before starting the fight again as if nothing happened.

–A fight where what first appears to be an eye poke is revealed to be a punch to the eye, causing a ruling to be made that the bout was already ended via technical knockout.

Then, there were some other somewhat uncommon (if not rare) occurrences, like Duane “Bang” Ludwig’s unfortunate and apparently horrific ankle injury in a preliminary bout, and Jones forcing Vera to roll over and give up after breaking three fractures in his cheekbone from two vicious elbows.  In a preliminary bout that was televised on Versus, John Howard (now 4-0 in the UFC) knocked out Daniel Roberts, which is quite normal.  What’s less usual is that Roberts was still prone on the mat when the official announcement was made and Howard’s hand was raised, which was after a commercial break, no less.  On a night that already was quite strange, all of this only made things even weirder.

Consider that only one fight on the main card went without a hitch: the heavyweight tilt between former “it” fighter Gabriel Gonzaga and current “it” fighter Junior dos Santos.  Even then, the  left hook that beautifully countered Gonzaga’s kick to the body and led to dos Santos putting Gonzaga away for good was definitely memorable.  Let’s put it this way: each fight provided plenty to talk about.

In the main event, Jones clearly intended to take Vera down, which he did without trouble throughout the short fight.  Vera looked calm fighting from the bottom and regularly trapped Jones’ arms, though he never made a serious commitment towards an arm bar or triangle from the bottom.

The elbows Jones landed, which were among the most well-executed that we’ve seen in recent times in the UFC, were beautifully effective and made Vera almost immediately cover his face and roll to his stomach.  As the stoppage was made, Vera appeared to be about to tap out, anyway.  Jones even tossed in an extra punch after the referee came in for the stoppage, perhaps as payback for the illegal upkicks to the mush that he took from Vera during the bout (one was penalized, one not).

The heavyweight division now has no shortage of possible contenders, as dos Santos now advances even further after another test of his ability.  Whenever someone bursts on the scene with a surprising and quick knockout of an established fighter like Fabricio Werdum, there is a certain amount of skepticism.  The dominant win over Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic may be undervalued because of how Cro Cop has looked in his UFC tenure.  However, with yet another big win by a vicious knockout, how could anyone overlook dos Santos now?

There was a brief moment where Gonzaga took dos Santos down early in the fight, and appeared to be on the verge of taking his back, but dos Santos did well to explode up and get away from the dangerous grappler before he got into too much trouble.  That was really Gonzaga’s best moment of the fight, and dos Santos was very impressive throughout.

Meanwhile, Cheick Kongo impressed by showing that he is diversifying his game in his win over Paul Buentello in a very weird fight.  Kongo wore Buentello down by striking effectively, closing the distance and taking him down regularly.  Once on the mat, Kongo’s ground and pound was vicious, as always.  He also joined the ever-growing list of fighters who have made me wish even more for the legalization of knees to the head of grounded fighters.  Buentello even helped the cause, by abusing the rule by “grounding” himself to avoid taking knees, thus showing the silliness of the rule in the first place.

–The Alessio Sakara-James Irvin fight was a bit disappointing, as I think Irvin cut too much weight in preparation for his questionable drop to 185 pounds.  Irvin did fine at 205, why would he drop in weight?  Particularly considering that the guy who destroyed him at 205 is the champion of Irvin’s new weight class?

Sakara looked pretty good, and the left hook that caught Irvin’s eye was perfectly thrown to avoid the defense of Irvin and land right where the Italian fighter wanted it to.  Still, it is the same old story with Sakara- great technical standup, questionable chin, poor ground game.  I don’t see how we can get too excited by his three fight winning streak, at least until he proves that he has worked on the rough spots in his skill set.

In the prelims, Howard won by devastating knockout as mentioned earlier, Ludwig had a fight-ending injury against Darren Elkins, Clay Guida submitted Shannon Gugerty with in round two, and Vladimir Matyushenko beat Eliot Marshall by split decision.  Also, Brendan Schaub made quick work of Chase Gormley with a 47-second TKO, and Mike Pierce and Jason Brilz enjoyed decision victories over Julio Paulino and Eric Schafer, respectively.

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Tags: Alessio Sakara, Brandon Vera, Cheick Kongo, Clay Guida, Duane Ludwig, Gabriel Gonzaga, James Irvin, Jon Jones, Junior Dos Santos, Paul Buentello, UFC on Versus