I wrote prior to UFC 138 that the event lacked star power, but had fights that styliscally could bode to be exciting and I was correct. There were knockouts, submissions, and rounds of nothing but action. There were a few questions that received answers and overall a solid event for the UFC even though it was heavily scrutinized by fans online including myself. Let’s get to the fights:

  • I thought Mark Munoz would beat Chris Leben and I mentioned that Leben has had cardio issues in the past. Well, it was the power of Munoz coupled with that cardio issue which caused Leben to quit in the cage after the second round. He said he couldn’t see because of the blood in his eyes, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I think he knew he was in trouble if he were to go out for the third round and that it was inevitable that he was going to be finished. Munoz called out Anderson Silva in his post-fight interview. I can’t blame him, his only loss is a split decision loss to former #1 contender Yushin Okami. However, he only has one win against a top ten middleweight in Demian Maia. Chael Sonnen will likely fight Silva next, but it is possible for the UFC to book Munoz against Sonnen. That’s not a good matchup for Munoz as Sonnen is the better wrestler.
  • Renan Barao just beasted Brad Pickett. Don’t get me wrong, because Pickett certainly made a fight out of it. However, it was just an incredible performance showing off all of his skills from striking to submissions fro Barao. The way he took Pickett’s back after hurting him with strikes was on some Spiderman stuff! The UFC may have just found their next opponent for bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
  • Thiago Alves was just too much for Papy Abedi in his UFC debut. I thought Abedi performed well for a guy making his UFC debut with only 9 fights against someone with the skillset of Alves. In hindsight it was a big reward little risk fight for Abedi in that no one expected him to win. If he looked halfway decent against Alves he would certainly be invited back to fight in the UFC and that’s probably what will happen.
  • Terry Etim smoked Eddie Faaloloto and that’s what he was supposed to do. The fight was over so fast that it’s hard to get an accurate picture of where Etim is in the lightweight division. It was a good quick win after a lengthy layoff, but it was against Eddie Faaloloto so let’s not get too carried away.
  • Was it me or was Joe Rogan a little too excited about Che Mills knocking out Chris Cope? It was impressive for sure, but it was Chris Cope, Joe!
  • How can anyone be in the fight game as long as Cyrille Diabate and still have no ground game? I understand that Anthony Perosh is much better than him on the ground, but…come on man! That’s the only fight I got wrong in my predictions, and I knew Perosh would submit him if it went to the ground.

Overall, you can’t really argue with FREE MMA and the card featured some good fights although none of them really had much impact in their respective divisions. I thought the crowd was great as most UK fans provide an exciting atmosphere. It’s just a shame they don’t get to see more high profiled fighters in action.

2 thoughts on “UFC 138 reaction: Thoughts and commentary”
  1. Thanks bro…not bragging but we are normally spot on for the most part with our predictions as a whole…how long you been visiting the site?

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