UFC 96: Jackson vs Jardine Recap

• The main event between Quinton Jackson and Keith Jardine was a bit disappointing in my book. Neither Jackson nor Jardine appeared to be in good cardio shape and both the second and third rounds looked like sloppy fighting. Jardine continues to prove his toughness and stayed in the fight. Jackson is lucky he landed those strikes in the final minute of the fight because he did not look impressive at all.
• Not much can be said about the Shane Carwin vs. Gabriel Gonzaga fight. The fight didn’t last very long and we didn’t see much from either fighter. We already knew Carwin has serious power, so seeing him KO another fighter in the first round is no surprise. What was a bit surprising was how easy Carwin was able to get back to his feet after having Gonzaga on top of him.
• Gray Maynard continues to impress and put on an error-free performance against Jim Miller. I still don’t think that Maynard was that dominant in the striking, I just think he landed the better strikes in the first round and while Miller was attempting a take down. Miller stayed tough and continued to battle but the first round damage was just too much to overcome.
• Who ever thought we’d see back-to-back KO victories by Matt Hamill? Mark Munoz just didn’t show up to fight last night and Hamill is getting stronger with each and every appearance in the Octagon.
• There needs to be some kind of disciplinary actions in place with the local athletic associations for referees just like there are for fighters. Yves Levigne should be suspended, or at the very least, fined for his performance last night in the Matt Brown vs. Pete Sell fight. Yves made too many mistakes to count. First he stopped the fight when he should have, but then quickly reversed his decision on a whim. Then he continued to let a clearly “not fully functional” Pete Sell get beaten down more and more. The refereeing was so poor that even Matt Brown couldn’t believe it and was begging Yves to stop the fight. This is not the first time Yves has done some stupid things in the cage, but this was easily the most egregious.
• Kendall Grove just saved himself from becoming the first Ultimate Fighter winner to be released from the UFC.