Well. UFC 136 was definitely better than UFC 135, but I was surprised that the bar I normally goto wasn’t packed at all. In fact, I had a whole table to myself until some random dude came and sat down about halfway through the Spike prelims. I went 3-2 on the night with my predictions. Let’s get to the fights:

  • I wrote that a fight with Joe Lauzon was just the type of fight that would give Melvin Guillard problems in the past, but that it seemed as though Melvin had matured past that stage. I was wrong on the latter. Guillard seemed overly confident and honestly he should have been confident as Lauzon was a good fight for him stylistically. He got rocked and once the fight hit the ground I knew it was a wrap. This is a very bad loss for Guillard. He said “I’ll be back” as the verdict was announced post-fight, but he’ll have a long way to go to get to where he was just at in the  lightweight division. Huge win for Lauzon, and everybody probably lost their parlay bets because of Guillard. That’s why I don’t bet on MMA!
  • Nam Phan just outclassed Leonard Garcia, and it wasn’t even close. How can you be in the game this long, yet have absolutely NO striking technique whatsoever Leonard Garcia? Why is it that Joe Rogan always talks about the power of Garcia, yet he never knocks anyone out? Good win for Phan and he redeems himself since he got robbed by the judges the first time he fought Garcia.
  • Chael Sonnen just mugged Brian Stann. He treated Stann like he was his little brother out in the backyard. Yep, one of those type of beatings. Stann defended the initial takedown, but Sonnen is just a veteran of the game and kept coming with pressure. Once I saw Sonnen take him down and keep him there, I knew it was a wrap. I was surprised that Sonnen won via submission as he’s usually on the opposite end of those…haha. I thought I was watching WWE for a second when Sonnen issued the challenge to Anderson Silva and that he’d leave the UFC if he lost to him again. Wow. I can’t wait for that fight to happen. Brian Stann has improved tremendously as a fighter, but unfortunately for him wrestling isn’t something you can just pick up overnight. He goes back to the drawing board.
  • I thought Jose Aldo showed Kenny Florian way too much respect. He should have never allowed Florian to put him against the cage like that. Now, Florian wasn’t able to do much with the position but it nullified Aldo somewhat and made the fight closer than it should have been. I heard that Florian was announcing his retirement? Makes sense as he’ll never get another UFC title shot and he’s approaching 36 years of age with career options after fighting. It looks like Chad Mendes might get the next shot at Aldo. He could give Aldo problems with his wrestling.
  • Gray Maynard, why did you not use your wrestling in this fight? He could have easily took Frankie Edgar down in the first round and probably pounded him out after hurting him. But no, he wanted to become a headhunter and go for the highlight reel knockout. Well, did you see what Frankie Edgar did when he hurt Maynard? He followed Maynard to the ground and sent punches to his dome forcing the referee to stop the fight. Why didn’t Maynard use his wrestling in any of the rounds? I wonder if his back was injured or something as that just didn’t make sense to me. I think the winner of Ben Henderson/Clay Guida should get the next shot at Edgar. I wouldn’t be mad at Gilbert Melendez getting it, but it would be better for him exsposure wise to have one fight in the UFC prior to the title fight in my opinion. 

Just a sidenote. Joe Rogan was incredibly biased in his commentating in my opinion. I know it’s impossible to be entirely unbiased, but he is bordering on ridiculous at times. If you listened to the Aldo/Florian fight without watching it, you’d swear that Florian was dominating that fight. He was the same way when Aldo fought Hominick earlier this year. He was horrible in the Phan/Garcia fight as well. The lowest point of the night for him was when he said that the Phan/Garcia fight was what MMA was all about. Umm, so MMA is about swinging as hard has you can hitting nothing but air with no technique(talking Leonard Garcia)? No thanks.

3 thoughts on “UFC 136 review: Immediate post-fight thoughts and commentary”
  1. Good article. I agree Rogan is biased for sure. I dont know where Florian goes from here maybe he can fight at Bantamweightlol. It amazes me that he keeps getting title shots dont get me wrong he is a good fighter but obvious favoritism with the UFC brass.

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