I Told You So About Houston Alexander

I told you so about Houston Alexander. I never said he was bad; I said he was an unknown commodity. I also said that his MMA upbringing – from a training standpoint – forced me to have serious concerns about his overall fight game. Some said I was being overly negative and not giving Alexander the benefit of the doubt, but it turns out that skepticism was more than warranted. I called Silva by TKO when almost no one agreed. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: unknown commodities do not deserve the benefit of the doubt in professional mixed martial arts. Trashing them or their accomplishments isn’t warranted, but until fighters prove themselves and demonstrate their skillsets are everything they need to be at this level of competition, support for their abilities is dubious.

Overall I went 8 for 9 in my picks last night. The only thing that prevented me from running the table was 10 extra seconds in the second round. Doerksen came very close to finishing with that triangle and while things didn’t go his way, I feel my pre-fight predictions were mostly vindicated.

I also didn’t watch the event and won’t pay for the PPV (I did see the Herman vs. Doerksen fight). From all accounts, UFC 78 was mediocre at best. As long as MMA fans by every card the UFC throws in front of us, the less incentive they’ll have to create more compelling cards. Learn to boycott MMA events every once in a while. Let’s make the MMA organizations work for our dollars. Let’s try to make sure there are no events so mediocre that Dana White has to pretend the winner of Bisping vs. Evans jumps into the top 10 of the light heavyweight division. I mean, really, was there any significant upshot to Evans’s victory other than a clear indication Rampage is categorically a superior fighter?