One Wild UFC 137

I wasn’t going to address this event at all but the fallout was just too relevant. UFC 137 was huge, ushering two legends into retirement and two champions got called out. And don’t sleep on a lightweight contender quietly emerging under a lot of radars.

Donald Cerrone (pictured) is on a six-fight win streak and his last two wins were first round finishes over highly touted lightweights. Before those fights, I was a little bit down on Donald Cerrone but readily retract my skepticism. Cerrone is fast, accurate and well rounded. He might be one win away from a title shot and in one of the most stacked divisions in the sport and he will meet Nate Diaz in December. The scariest part about Doland Cerrone’s rise in the UFC is his improvement. He gets better every single fight and the best is yet to come.

Calling out champions was the cool thing to do at UFC 137 and in at least one case it worked. Less effective challenges included Roy Nelson vaguely calling out whoever is the champion after the inaugural UFC on FOX event. Cheick Kongo then went on to say he wanted a rematch with “lucky” Cain Velasquez. So as to provide a little background, Kongo lost a three round decision to Velasquez where he rocked the future champion twice before being drug to the ground and beat on mercilessly. Nelson on the other hand played punching bag to current number one contender Junior Dos Santos for 15 minutes. Neither guy deserves a title shot at this point in their career but fighting each other makes a lot of sense; BOOK IT! While those two challenges fell well short of the mark, Nick Diaz (pictured) ruffled just enough feathers to change the landscape of the welterweight division. Apparently, GSP didn’t take kindly to being accused of faking an injury and requested a change in his next fight. The always-cool UFC Welterweight Champion has declared that he will beat Diaz worse than anyone has been beaten in the sport. Diaz looked pretty good against BJ Penn, taking shots early and beating down the mixed martial arts legend for the better part of the last two rounds. It would be easy to dismiss the win to Penn being past his prime but Diaz demonstrated just how effective his unorthodox boxing is, how far his cardio can carry him and how even one of the best grapplers in the game wanted no part of Diaz on the ground. Nick Diaz looked good enough and talked loud enough get his title shot and now he awaits the healing welterweight king. What is best, GSP has no excuse not return to that old killer instinct that he lacked over the last four fights.

Nick Diaz might be the talk of the town but long time MMA fans lament the retirement of two true legends of the sport. Newer fans may see Mirko Cro Cop as a washed up has been at best and perhaps this isn’t far from the truth. The common discourse regarding BJ Penn after the fight (note the stress on the word after) is that he is past his prime. Again, this is probably not far from the truth. Despite their recent lack of success both of these two fighters always brought it. They were not generators of boring fights and for those of us who were around for their respective primes, few caused as much buzz and delivered as much excitement as BJ Penn and Mirko Cro Cop. My hat is off to both these men and while I think there is a chance that BJ Penn returns down the road, both their careers should be remembered fondly.