Ah crud, I totally forgot to post these yesterday. Better (very) late than never, right?
Alexander Crispim def. A.J. Fonseca (Unanimous Decision) Justin Wilcox def. Daisuke Nakamura(Unanimous Decision) Antwain Britt def. Scott Lighty (TKO – Doctor stoppage, Round 1 - 5:00) Muhammed Lawal def. Mike Whitehead (KO - Punches, Round 1, 3:08) Ronaldo Souza def. Matt Lindland (Submission – Arm-triangle choke, Round 1, 4:18) Gilbert Melendez def. Josh Thomson (Unanimous Decision) Scott Smith def. Cung Le (KO - Punches, Round 3, 3:25)
T'was a fun night for the most part, highlighted by the awesome Melendez v Thomson fight.
Daisuke losing always makes me a little sad, but he is what he is and his appeal doesn't lie in his win/loss record. King Mo didn't do much of anything for two and a half minutes before knocking Whitehead on his ass with a nice right and following it up with some smart ground-and-pound. He could do with a step up in competition any time now.
Jacare is pretty damn awesome. If he and Mayhem Miller ever get round to having a third fight it will not end well for Jason.
Melendez v Thomson was just flat-out awesome, and a strong contender for fight of the year. Certainly one of my personal favourites. If you haven't seen it, go find it. Fantastic stuff. You won't be disappointed.
Melendez deserved the win, and if they can use their talent sharing deal with DREAM to set up Aoki v Melendez I'll be as happy as a pig in the proverbial poo.
Finally, Cung Le battered hell out of Scott Smith for the best part of two-and-a-half rounds before gassing and getting KO'd by Smith. I should probably know better than to count Scott Smith out of any fight in which he's still conscious, but for all the world I thought we were headed to a comfortable Le victory. I'd like to think Le would come back with renewed desire and focus for a rematch, but I suspect he's more likely going to toddle off back to making movies until they can find someone utterly inept for him to crush, probably about 18 months from now. I hope he proves me wrong.
Anyway, what are you still doing here? Didn't I tell you to go watch Melendez v Thomson already? Go. Go now! It is for such ocassions that God made the YouTubes you know....
Scott Smith proved, essentially, that he is Scott Smith: he has no gameplan nor does he learn very well, but as he loses a fight it becomes proportionally more likely that he'll kill you.
There's no reason whatsoever that fight shouldn't have been stopped in the first, but Cung Le being Cung Le, he just sort of...continued to lightly brush Smith's face with his wrist every few seconds. If he'd postured up and thrown harder, or even just faster, BJM would've called it. Apparently Le felt he just hadn't thrown enough spinning back kicks.
Do Mo/Mousasi, already. Give both men some stiffer competition. Overeem's not coming back, apparently, so do Fedor/Werdum, Mousasi/Mo and Hendo/Shields as a triple-header title card. Solidify the ranks.
Originally posted by CarlCXDo Mo/Mousasi, already. Give both men some stiffer competition. Overeem's not coming back, apparently, so do Fedor/Werdum, Mousasi/Mo and Hendo/Shields as a triple-header title card. Solidify the ranks.
I think Mo could do with another fight or two before getting in the ring with Mousasi. Whether they've got enough worthwhile LHWs to keep both men apart for 12 months is probably another matter. If Monson wants to drop down in weight then he'd be a decent match-up for Mo, but I can't think who that would leave Gegard with right now.
I reckon you could be in luck with Fedor/Werdum and Henderson/Shields come April. Overeem.....I'm kinda giving up on. I can handle him fighting Fujita in December, but now he wants to fight in K1 again in early Spring and THEN take a break?
Just pick a damn sport already, and if it isn't MMA, then hand your belt back to those who want it.
Originally posted by dMr Whether they've got enough worthwhile LHWs to keep both men apart for 12 months is probably another matter. If Monson wants to drop down in weight then he'd be a decent match-up for Mo, but I can't think who that would leave Gegard with right now.
Pretty much, yeah. Mo's knocked off a good journeyman in Travis Wiuff and, unfortunately, one of Strikeforce's top 5 LHWs in Whitehead. Seriously, how do they rank LHW right now? There's Mousasi, then there's Babalu and Sokoudjou, neither of whom can fight him again, then Mo and Whitehead, and after that you've got Randleman and Feijao, neither of whom can get back on the board. They can give Mo Feijao or Babalu, I guess, but there's no real upside. The only contenders worth a damn from a business perspective are Mo and Hendo--and Hendo won't even be fighting at 205 for another 6-12 months, and if he does, it will stall their middleweight division completely. God forbid they actually let Hendo pursue his plan of world conquest--if(/when) he murders Shields and takes the 185 strap, then gets Mousasi and quite likely overwhelms him, two of their three marquee divisions are dead in the water. If he actually beat Fedor thereafter like Strikeforce seems to want him to, who knows.
Whatever the case, I have trouble seeing Monson making an impact at 205. This is a guy who got lit up by older, more busted Pedro Rizzo and Roy Nelson, and was ground-neutralized by Tim Sylvia. I'm actually a big fan of his, but he always had issues of size, cardio and striking skill--and 205 not only is still on average bigger than him, it's got more rounded fighters, much better strikers, and much, much better athletes. I think 205 will be a swan song for him, unfortunately.
Overeem is awesome, but yeah, the K-1 thing is a pain in the dick, and hell, I like his K-1 fights. He's got too much to prove in MMA, though. Sucks that it won't be happening--but on the other hand, the more fed up Strikeforce gets with him, the more likely we see him end up in the UFC. That would be fairly excellent.
Man, I feel like the MMA threads are really just you and I talking to each other. Sorry, CRZ.
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