My take on UFC 87

Maia vs McDonald

Cracking first round, submission attempts, escapes, reversals...  I thought this would be a contender for Fight of the Night, although that eventually went to GSP vs Fitch.  Enjoyed the fight anyway, and thought it was headed for the scorecards until Maia got the choke.

PS, Submission of the Night went to Maia for this one and KO of the Night went to Emerson for his stoppage of Gamburyan.

Florian vs Huerta

Agreed that this fight was not really up to the hype.  I think “KenFlo” went in with a good solid gameplan and Huerta went in with bad intentions and aggression but not much else.  Huerta has failed in his first big test and I’d kill to be a fly on the wall for his contract negotiations!

Florian has put himself in a great spot for a title shot, but he will likely have to wait as BJ and GSP look destined to fight next.  On the other hand, if GSP beats Penn, (and I think he will), then Kenny could end up having a title shot against a dejected and disappointed Penn and that could play in his favour.

Not sure where Huerta goes from here, but I suspect he may have a long time out if he insists on his fat new contract, as the UFC will simply give him the Arlovski treatment and make him sit out for a year until he can walk away.

Gamburyan vs Emerson

Don’t particularly rate either of these 2, but a brief and entertaining fight nonetheless.  Loved the way Emerson was scrambling to stay on his feet and just landed the hard left as Gamburyan was sitting up.  He was like one of those inflatable things kids get where you hit them and they bounce back up.

Kongo vs Evenson

I had heard good things about Evenson, but he was fairly dung to be honest.  Apart from looking like the 80s TV character “Sledge Hammer” during his walk in, there was nothing else of note.

I don’t know what to make of Kongo.  The few times I’ve seen him fight I was not overly impressed, and I don’t really get what he was waffling about at the end, with his pretty sullen “I want the title” speech.  He’s not ready for a title shot yet I’d think, he’d need at least 1 more win.  If the HW division wasn’t so shallow I’d say 2 wins but 1 should do him, possibly against Brock Lesnar, who is rumoured to be his next opponent.  Thing is, Brock isn’t a title contender, so I’d think he’d need to fight someone higher up the food chain, like Werdum maybe.

Nice KO anyway, but Evenson is pretty cack so you can’t give him too much applause for it.

Lesnar vs Herring

Great to see that after all the talk of Herring having a big advantage in the standup, Lesnar put him on his ass with his first punch!  Overall, not the most exciting fight I’ve ever seen, but very impressive how easily Lesnar manhandled Herring throughout.  The state of Herring’s eye after just 1 round was horrible.

Lesnar is getting a lot of stick for the way he behaved after the fight, as he was very disrespectful to Herring afterwards, showboating in the cage with 5 seconds left and his attitude afterwards was pretty low.  I have to say that after watching it last night I was far from impressed too, but blamed excitement at his first UFC win, and also the fact that he has not been in MMA for long.  Most fighters have trained in martial arts for many years and respect is a huge part of that training wheras Lesnar is coming from the testosterone filled college wrestling, (which has produced arrogant sods like Koscheck and Hughes) and then WWE.

However, having read up on it all this morning, I don’t think we can be too hard on him.  First of all, Herring was extremely disrespectful in the run in to the fight, more so than the usual pre-fight smack talk.  He apparently voiced his disapproval to Dana White at taking the fight at all, as he thought Lesnar was not worthy of fighting him and was just a freakshow.  He also dismissed Lesnar’s wrestling ability and said that he was going to nail the lid on the coffin of his career by beating him.  And having watched both his previous MMA matches, against Soo Kim and Mir, he was very respectful to both opponents so I think his reaction against Herring was due to the bad blood between the fighters.  You could also point out that Tito Ortiz did his “burying his opponent” routine after every fight he won, and BJ Penn has a nasty habit of licking his opponent’s blood after the fight.  Regardless of the reasons, it was still pretty classless and I’m sure that Dana White or some of his training partners and coaches will have a quiet word.

There is some thought that the reason Lesnar showed such poor Jujitsu in the fight, (not finishing the guillotine in the first round, not taking Herring’s back when it was repeatedly available), was because he did not want to finish him, he wanted to brutalize him and punish him for the whole fight.  A quick KO can be dismissed as a fluke or a slip in concentration, but dominating the hell out of him for 3 rounds is nothing short of embarrassing.  Don’t know if there’s any truth in that but Lesnar is certainly cocky enough to do it.  And he has been training a lot with a BJJ black belt so it was surprising to see him not take the choke when it was so readily available.

I was thinking that the UFC now had 2 routes to take with Lesnar, either give him a few easier fights to hone his talents, like Eddie Sanchez, Mark Coleman or Dan Evenson, or they could continue to build him towards a title shot.  It seems like they’re choosing the latter, as Kongo is likely to be the next fight for him.  I think it’s a fight he could certainly win.  Kongo just got beat by Herring, and showed a fairly limited ground game.  I can see that fight going the exact same way as Herring, Lesnar taking him down and pounding him, except this time we might actually see some BJJ from the big man.  Kongo’s strength is supposed to be his kickboxing but I’ve seen very little of it so far.

GSP vs Fitch

3 things highlighted clearly in this fight.  GSP is one amazing fighter, standing, on the ground, everywhere.  Jon Fitch has a granite chin and a huge heart.  Goldberg is one hell of an annoying commentator.

GSP was fantastic in this fight, when he went for the take-down first, I was worried that it was going to be another wrestling match and that GSP was gun-shy.  He set that straight by showing some cracking standup later and nearly taking Fitch’s head off.  Spinning back kicks, back fists, everything just looked great.  I think if the BJ/GSP fight happens, GSP will win.  Not that I don't rate BJ Penn, I just think that GSP is up there with Anderson Silva as one of the most complete fighters in the UFC.

Also, I spent half of the fight curious as to what was written on the ass of GSP’s shorts, but not curious enough to stare at another man’s bum long enough and intently enough to find out… (Apparently it was UFC 2009, Undisputed, I got one of the girls who were watching to find out for me!)

I think Fitch could beat most of the rest of this division, so we could end up with a similar situation to MW, where Franklin could bet everybody else but not Silva.  Whether Fitch is in a position to move up or down in weight I don't know, as WW looks about right for him.  I'd say he's more likely to go back to drawing board and hope for another crack at GSP in a year's time.  Fitch vs Florian at some point will be a hell of a fight.

Goldberg is just getting on my nerves now.  Comments like “Anderson Silva’s precision is just so… precise” are at least humorous, but his constant rattling off of takedown statistics was terribly irritating after a while.

So in conclusion to my first story, a good night overall, GSP is a legend (and only 27!!!), Lesnar has shown a lot of improvement since Mir, very composed but maybe a little 1-dimensional, and Huerta didn’t walk the walk like he talked the talk.

Apologies if this turned into more of an analysis of the Lesnar fight than the whole event but there were so many talking points from that one.

Be gentle with me, it's my first story!