UFC 133 Parting Shots

The magic may have run out for Tito Ortiz, but Rashad Evans, Vitor Belfort, Rory MacDonald and others were definitely working the mojo last Saturday night at UFC 133. Vicious finishes were the norm rather than the exception that evening, as the main card featured knockouts or TKOs in four out of five bouts. Here are my final thoughts on UFC 133.

Evans better than ever in destruction of Ortiz

Even if you don’t want to give Tito Ortiz credit for his shocking win over Ryan Bader a month ago, he’s fought some pretty good competition and yet, the list of fighters who can say they dominated him forms a pretty elite group: Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell and now, Rashad Evans. (I suppose you could say Lyoto Machida, but that admittedly one-sided fight didn’t feature enough activity from Machida to be called a “domination” in my view.) Of that group, Liddell and Evans were still the only two to actually finish Ortiz.

My point is that Ortiz may not be a safe bet to win against a fair amount of the top 15 light heavyweights in the world, but he barely ever just gets manhandled in a fight. Evans should receive plenty of credit for his performance against Ortiz, because we should all know by now that Tito’s a tough nut to crack. The skills and talent that Evans displayed were especially impressive. Evans showed great endurance and strength (as when he sucked Tito in on a double leg takedown attempt against the cage that ended up being a brutal slam), increased aggressiveness, better hands and even incorporated some last second tips from boxing great Bernard Hopkins into his strategy. Before the fight, Hopkins advised Evans to throw his left hook as he stepped to the right to cut the cage off from Ortiz, since Ortiz would be moving to his right and walk right into the punch. Evans did just that.

Evans is a great student of the game with all the physical attributes you would need to mold a superior fighter. His willingness to learn and incorporate new techniques and knowledge (such as his guillotine defense- learned from Renzo Gracie- that kept him calm when Ortiz went for the submission) have taken him just as far as his athleticism, though. Will Evans beat the winner of Jon Jones and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson? I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t bet against him.

Quick Shots

–MMA forum trolls had a field day complaining about Vitor Belfort’s punches to the back of Yoshihiro Akiyama’s head at the conclusion of their fight. Only one problem here, people: Akiyama was already knocked out before the punches. It was the right hand that Belfort tucked under Akiyama’s left arm as Akiyama fell down that put him out for good, not the two lefts that landed behind Akiyama’s ear. I wouldn’t mind seeing the UFC or athletic commissions take a more proactive approach to dissuading fighters from landing extra shots after a knockout, but even in that case, it happened very fast in this fight and Belfort had less opportunity to realize Akiyama was out because he couldn’t see his face.

I wouldn’t argue too hard against a fine of some sort, but a disqualification? Come on. As I said, those punches didn’t knock out Akiyama, anyway. A win should be a win and if anything happens after the fight is essentially over with, deal with it by assessing a fine. Even then, if the hundreds of fighters who have pummeled unconscious opponents in the past have escaped with their paychecks intact, there’s no cause to punish Belfort. As usual, I think this is just an example of Akiyama fans feeling bitter and to a lesser extent, people just wanting to complain.

Say What?!?

“Yeah, but this song sucks.”- Joe Rogan responding to Mike Goldberg’s observation that Rory MacDonald was using “old school” entrance music, too. (MacDonald came out to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”, while his opponent Mike Pyle walked out to the theme from the original Rocky, Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now”.)

You Stay Classy

Dennis Hallman wore a banana hammock to fight in and proceeded to immediately start grappling with his opponent, Brian Ebersole, apparently unaware that when grappling, your um, “shorts” can move around a bit. As a result, he flashed his dong to a couple million people. You stay classy, Dennis Hallman!

On a side note, how crazy is it that Hallman, a guy with 70-some professional fights, will now be known as the Banana Hammock Guy? Not the dude who armbarred Matt Hughes twice in a total of 37 seconds, but the dude who inadvertently showed his schlong to the entire viewing audience at UFC 133.

On yet another note, I firmly believe that Hallman’s shorts worked at first, as Ebersole did not seem ready to fight at the outset of the contest. In that way, it was a brilliant little piece of mind-fuckery. I mean, Ebersole struts out there with an arrow shaved in his chest hair, thinking he’s the crazy guy. So Hallman approaches the cage, reveals that he bought his fight shorts from Frederick’s of Hollywood, and suddenly Ebersole is no longer the zany guy in the cage. Not only did Hallman steal Ebersole’s thunder, but Ebersole had to face the reality of grappling with that guy. Plain and simple, as my friend Rich said, Hallman took Ebersole by surprise and nearly won the fight because of it. Now, if you’re going to take the chance of the sausage slipping out during a pay-per-view fight to get a psychological advantage (Hallman says he “lost a bet”- ummm…sure), you’d better finish the rear naked choke, though.

“The Sound of Violence” Award

This time, we have a tie. I thought Constantinos Philippou had it locked up when he strolled out to Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”, but then I realized that Yoshihiro Akiyama had never won the award for his “Ave Maria” entrance. So, both share the honors.

“Movin’ On Up” Award

While we’re handing out ties, why not do it here, as well? Everyone is talking about Rory MacDonald following his thrashing of Mike Pyle, but what about the 24-year old Alexander Gustafsson’s destruction of Matt Hamill on the prelims? MacDonald is a great prospect, but so is Gustafsson, who has only lost to fellow uber-prospect Phil Davis in his young career.

Oh, and if you’re trying to sell me on MacDonald being better at this point in his career than Georges St. Pierre, I’m not buying it. If we’re going by age, you’ve got a better argument because MacDonald already has 13 fights at age 22. (It helps when you turn pro at 16 and fight five times before you turn 18.) But by GSP’s 13th fight, he had beaten BJ Penn, Sean Sherk, Frank Trigg, Jason Miller and Karo Parisyan and was about to take the belt from Matt Hughes. Whatever. The point is: don’t saddle this kid with comparisons to GSP already. Yes, he’s Canadian, trains with the guy and is a good fighter. That doesn’t mean he needs to be thrust into the role of “GSP 2.0″, though. While we’re at it: Joe Silva, please don’t throw this guy in there with the division’s elite for another year at least. He’s very talented, but there’s no reason to get hasty and toss him in there with someone like Jon Fitch just to “see what he’s got”.

“Holy $#@&!” Award

The best finish of the night in my estimation was Rashad Evans’ perfect knee to Tito Ortiz’s body, which crumpled Ortiz up and essentially finished the fight (it wasn’t those pitter-patter punches afterward that kept Ortiz from recovering, let me tell you). However, if we’re going to honor the spirit of this award, it has to go to Ortiz for his guillotine attempt from earlier in the fight. Sure, Rashad’s arm was in and Ortiz wasn’t able to lock up his guard, but when he grabbed the hold and laid back while trying to get guard, how many people were holding their breath? The tension for the next several seconds was awesome, and the thought (just for a second) that Tito may shock us all again with the same damned submission was truly a “holy shit” moment.

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Alexander Gustafsson, Brian Ebersole, Constantinos Philippou, Dennis Hallman, Matt Hamill, Mike Pyle, Rashad Evans, Rory MacDonald, Tito Ortiz, UFC, UFC 133, Vitor Belfort, Yoshihiro Akiyama