Wow. What a show the UFC put on last night in Canada right? I wrote beforehand that I thought the 3 big fights on the card would be one-sided, and that pretty much came to fruition save Mark Hominick showing that he has mad heart in the final round of his fight with Aldo.
However, the entire event was entertaining with a little bit of everything.
The first thing I liked was the UFC”s new intro it used instead of the old ‘gladiator’ scene as the PPV was starting. I have no idea if this is a permanent move, but it certainly gave a different ‘feel’ to the event in my opinion.
Also, the fighter entrances were great but that probably had more to do with the stadium and huge screen directly over the cage more than anything. The camera shots that panned the stadium certainly made it feel as if you were witnessing something major. Let’s get to the fights:
- Georges St-Pierre is in a lose-lose situation. He’s so dominant that if he doesn’t finish his opponents he catches flack for it. The fact of the matter is George St-Pierre has fought the toughest slate of fighters for any mixed martial artist in the history of MMA when you span his career. The object of fighting is to inflict damage without taking any, and besides Anderson Silva, GSP is the absolute best. George St-Pierre is the greatest welterweight of all time bar none.
- Everyone questioning Jake Shields game-plan like it wasn’t obvious that he couldn’t take GSP down. The fight went like I said it would in the preview and that’s because GSP is the best at making his opponents fight HIS fight.
- Mark Hominick has heart. I said on twitter that Jose Aldo would run through him, and that’s what happened for the first four rounds. However, I have to give Hominick mad credit for going for it in the final round even if Aldo was sandbagging a bit.
- Jose Aldo is a freak of nature. I’ve never seen anyone slip the jab the way he did against Hominick. Granted, Hominick was successful on a number of times but Aldo’s ability to slip the jab while staying in the pocket to return fire was the best I’ve ever seen in MMA. I thought the champ performed very well even though some people are criticizing him. He was very active and the majority of his strikes were power strikes. He also showed his ability to get the takedown as I said he would be able to in the preview. It looks like Chad Mendes is next, but I’m not sure he can pose a threat to the champion.
- Lyoto Machida simply outclassed Randy Couture. Couture would try to cut off the cage and Machida would either not be there or just shrug Couture off. He countered well with the straight left and right hand. It was a good win for Machida as he couldn’t afford to lose three in a row, but that’s about all this win means because Couture was not a top ten guy even though Dana White would want you to believe that.
- Thanks for the memories Randy Couture. It’s definitely time to call it a career.
- Ben Henderson passed his UFC debut test. On twitter it seemed as though a lot of people thought the fight was closer than it really was. I scored it 30-27 across the board for Henderson. Mark Bocek didn’t do anything beside a couple of takedowns and threaten with a submission like once. Henderson dominated him in the striking department and stopped the majority of Bocek’s takedown attempts. Henderson vs. Clay Guida next?
- I’ve been high on Jake Ellenberger for a long time and it’s time for him to fight another top guy. He almost took out Carlos Condit in his UFC debut on like two weeks notice and he hasn’t lost since. A fight with Josh Koscheck as someone mentioned on twitter last night would be great.
- Rory MacDonald proved that he is for real. I expected him to win but he absolutely manhandled Nate Diaz the longer the fight went on. That kid will be a contender soon.
I thought the event was splendid, and I’d like to see how an American crowd would be in a setting like Cowboy stadium. The stadium setting just felt as if the event was larger than life and the fighters fought like that was the case for the most part. That’s the best UFC event I’ve seen in a long time.
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For GSP to finish that fight and fend off Shields with one eye was pretty amazing, as well as Hominick’s alien baby head. The anti-climactic main event was my only “criticism” of the show, but once it became apparent GSP’s eye was affecting him, he pretty much gets a pass in my opinion. GSP’s striking looked great against Koscheck. There’s no way he just suddenly regressed that much, so it had to be the eye. Hopefully, it won’t be too serious and he will recover okay.