Monday, December 31, 2012

UFC 155 Thoughts

UFC 155 will be remembered for primarily 3 things: Cain Velasquez regaining his heavyweight title, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller being awesome at everything they do, and middleweights letting us down with lackluster performances.

This is a night that started on Facebook.  The only submission of the night was recorded in the first fight and it was a beauty.  John Moraga submitted Chris Cariaso with a sick arm in guillotine choke to get the night started.  The Facebook card heated up with youngster Max Holloway battling Leonard Garcia to a controversial split decision victory.  All 3 rounds were close so I find it hard to argue against the decision although I believe Garcia got unlucky with this loss.  Then heavyweight Todd Duffee capped off the Facebook portion of UFC 155 with a vicious TKO of Phil De Fries.  So far so good through 3 fights, I was very entertained.

The rest of the prelims were solid as well. Myles Jury built off his TUF appearance and stayed undefeated by outclassing his opponent for 3 rounds.  Jamie Varner followed Jury up with an exciting battle with Melvin Guillard and won a puzzling split decision.  I thought the fight was a pretty tough one to score, but one judge scored it a 30-27 win for Guillard while the other 2 judges scored it 30-27 in favor of Varner.  I personally had it 29-28 Varner but regardless of who won and how, it was an exciting fight that puts Jamie right back into the mix at 155 lbs.  Erik Perez won the next fight via 1st round TKO making him a HUGE prospect and threat to the bantamweight division.  The FX prelims ended with Eddie Wineland outboxing Brad Pickett in an exciting match.  Pickett stayed tough in the pocket the entire fight but could not muster enough to win the fight and Wineland won via split decision.

After the prelims, my predictions came in at 4-3 which I was ok with since I felt Leonard got robbed.  My predictions got a little dicey with the main card, since my 3 middleweights let me down in disappointing performances.

The PPV card started with Chris Leben laying an egg against Derek Brunson.  Leben was outwrestled and did little to get out from under him.  When striking, Leben did not resemble the dangerous striker that held his own against Brian Stann and knocked out Wanderlei Silva.  Joe Rogan put it very nicely saying it looked like he was trying to punch Brunson while standing in quicksand.  Dana White eluded to some personal problems Leben was facing in the post fight interview, but he said he was not happy with the fight as it was a snoozer.

Next, Alan Belcher looked to win his rematch against Okami.  He was easily wrestled to the ground and could not get the powerful Okami off of him.  When standing, Belcher was afraid to get taken down so could not throw leg kicks like he normally does.  And although Belcher landed some combinations, Yushin would implement the clinch and throw Alan against the cage whenever he did so.  Okami was able to outlast Belcher to take a unanimous decision victory.

Tim Boetsch, like Belcher, was a top contender in the middleweight division coming into his UFC 155 fight against Chris Weidman.  Weidman had to cancel and Costa Philippou jumped in at the chance to fight a top 5 middleweight.  Costa came in and implemented his game plan on his way to a TKO victory over Boetsch.  It was clear something was wrong with Tim.  Joe Rogan said multiple times it seemed like he had a broken hand or wrist or something because Tim would not throw punches with any frequency after the first round.  Boetsch was getting outworked and went for a few takedowns before eventually being outdone.  Costa finished him in the third to make a big statement in the middleweight division, despite it being a lackluster performance on the excitement aspect of fighting.

The co-main event of Jim Miller versus Joe Lauzon was the definition of a perfect match up of fighters and it did not let us down one bit.  I thought this would easily be Fight of the Night, which it was.  Lauzon has developed a reputation for taking home Submission of the Night and Fight of the Night bonuses every fight.  He kept it going against Miller.  In the first round of this epic fight, Miller got loose and never stopped putting a beating on Lauzon.  He landed kicks and punches at will and really never let up on the pressure.  Late in the round he got in a clinch and threw absolutely devastating elbows which hacked Joe's face open.  The second round started out as much of the same, and then Jim went in for a takedown.  He got it and held the top position for a while although he did little from it.  Lauzon's face bled into a puddle on the canvas but he did not let up.  Lauzon eventually got a successful sweep after an awkward stoppage by ref Yves Lavigne and stole the round.  The third round started with Miller kicking Joe's feet from under him.  They exchanged until they were absolutely exhausted.  Lauzon in the final 20 seconds went for a flying scissor heel hook that was very close to being the one of the greatest submissions ever.  Miller narrowly escaped only to be put in a guillotine choke.  He held his own for the waning seconds of the fight to hang on to a decision victory.  This fight was incredible start to finish and saved this card from being a disaster.

The main event had a tough act to follow but it did a pretty solid job in doing so.  Many people thought Cain was unbeatable until he fought Cigano for the first time and was knocked stupid in the first round and lost his belt.  Cain came back to destroy Bigfoot Silva and received his rematch with the champ Junior dos Santos.  Now the shoe is on the other foot.  Many thought JDS to be the same unbeatable force Cain once was.  Well it turns out he is human too.  Cain Velasquez came out of the gate like a mad man.  He came out fast, had good head movement, and pushed the pace.  He did what he could not do in the first fight, secure a takedown.  His wrestling looked spectacular in the entire fight.  Late in the first round was when it all changed though.  Untouchable Junior threw a jab that Cain simply ate as he cocked back his right hand for a massive punch to the jaw of JDS.  This rocked him and got him really beat up in the first round.  After this he looked beat up and tired.  Junior could not stop the takedowns of Cain and could not muster enough energy to throw the vicious combinations we became so used to seeing from him.  Cain mauled him for 5 rounds but could not finish Junior.  I give credit to JDS for surviving the duration of the fight, be he needs to do some serious work if he plans to win the rubber match between them.  This was a great fight and I was happy to see Cain on top again.

The middleweights let me down so I started out 0-3 in my PPV predictions.  However, predicting a FOTN decision win by Miller and an upset by Cain Velasquez helped my predictions seem more legit. (Most people had Alan and Tim winning so I don't feel dumb for picking them).

Overall I finished UFC 155 with a disappointing 6-6 split.  I am now at 12/23 overall at 52% but I am new to the game, have a small sample size, and planning on improving that ASAP.

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