UFC 106 was a strange event. On one hand I enjoyed watching it and was pretty content with the results as a whole. On the other, I had a hard time getting excited for the card both as it approached and as it faded into the background of my weekend. When I ran into some friends later and was asked about UFC 106 it was hard for me to care to explain any more than the basic results. I don’t know if this is because it followed a very entertaining Strikeforce card and has been overwhelmed by disappointing news about injuries and mysterious diseases or if it was because the card just lacked a certain zest both on paper and in reality. When it boils down to it, this card was free and few could complain about what it had to offer for the price.
Ross Pearson looked really good fighting a game opponent in Aaron Riley. I think Riley has been a bit underrated for quite some time but Pearson may have proven me wrong. Give credit where credit is due, Pearson came in and put on a show that outdid anything we saw from his season on The Ultimate Fighter (from ANY fighter), but this definitely changes where I conceptualize both fighters in the Light-Heavyweight division. Pearson is all the sudden an interesting prospect and Riley is a guy I might be more interested in seeing in the WEC (where I think he could win a lot of fights).
Speaking of putting on a show, there are few fighters I enjoy watching more than Matt Brown. James Wilks put up a better fight than I expected but Brown willed out another win. To be honest, I didn’t think The Immortal looked as good in this fight as his last few but it was enough to get another win. I think this was also the finish of the night. It certainly wasn’t going to win any awards but the way in which Brown rolled his way out of the submission and into mount (intentional or not) had the folks at my house stunned. Matt Brown has a long long way to go before he is championship material but I don’t think he would give anyone in the division an easy night.
Denis Kang’s best years might be behind him. I really believed that he was going to put on a great show here. The first round completely belonged to Kang, but that didn’t last. Michael Bisping got back to his winning ways and that is all that really matters in this fight. We learned that Bisping has the ability to bounce back from a tough loss. In fact, getting beat down for the better part of the first round only makes his bounce back more impressive.
Dan Hardy is going to get a shot at the Welterweight Title. I really never thought I would type those words after Hardy’s first few fights but he has worked his way up the ranks and now sits in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. This was more like the Swick I have expected we would see eventually; facing a game opponent, but that doesn’t mean that Swick is a pushover. The fight wasn’t stunning, it wasn’t amazing, and it was a little closer than the scorecards indicated. However, it was enough to get us a number one contender for GSP’s title. Now Hardy will take about 10 steps up in competition and fight a pound-for-pound great. I hope his trash-talk is up to par for this one.
I really don’t remember the last time I heard so many people down on Randy Couture after a fight. He had almost become one of those untouchable fighters, impervious to criticism by the masses. However, 15 minutes of holding Brandon Vera against the cage and grinding out a win will do some strange things to the MMA world. The Truth clearly got the best of Couture when there was any distance between the two but once Randy got him clinched against the cage things changed. Unfortunately for Vera, that was were about 85% of the fight took place. I haven’t been high on Vera for quite some time. In fact, I have found him to be a bit overrated, but he showed me a lot in this fight, much more than Randy did. Vera’s stand-up is looking sharper every day. He took the disappointing and somewhat controversial loss with a lot of class and made an all time great work real real hard for a win. Some people, Joe Rogan most notably, were convinced that Vera should and would get the nod for this effort but I am not particularly upset when Couture’s hand was raised. He dictated the pace and pushed Vera around. I scored it 29-28 Couture but if I watched it again in another context I could have gone the other direction. It was that close to me. For the first time in quite a while I will be looking forward to seeing Brandon Vera’s next fight and for the first time in even longer I haven’t given much thought at all to who will fight Randy Couture. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think Randy is done. I just think he is going to have some serious trouble with the most stacked division in MMA and his performance didn’t leave me wanting more.
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