-B.J. Penn is scary good. Penn made Diego Sanchez’s face look like a Diaz brother by the end of this fight. Sanchez offered no threat to B.J. at any point during the bout. With no obvious contender waiting in the wings, it will be interesting to see who Dana White and Joe Silva find for Penn to fight.
-Three things jumped out to me in the final round of the main event. One, Joe’s use of the phrase “calm as glass”. Perhaps I’m a lowly philistine, but I’m unfamiliar with that bit of jargon. Two, B.J. Penn threw a high kick. I can’t remember him ever doing that in the past. Three, B.J. b—- slapped Diego sometime in the middle of the round when Diego latched on to a single.
-Alan Belcher may have the worst taste in MMA. Pink shorts. Awful Johnny Cash tattoo. And then the Urijah Faber white-rows. Ew.
-Call me a hater, but I’m still not entirely sold on Frank Mir as a legitimate heavyweight threat. That being said, the performance was impressive. The punch didn’t look to rock Kongo as much as catch him off guard, and Frank was able to secure the guillotine in the ensuing scramble. From there, Kongo moved or was forced to move the wrong way to defend the choke, and that was all she wrote.
-Fitch/Pierce went as anyone could have expected. Pierce looked good in defeat, especially in the third round, but Fitch was just too big and too experienced for him.
-For a guy with as much energy as Clay Guida, he sure takes forever to takes his gear off and get in the cage.
-Can someone be unpredictable when their corner is screaming, “I need unpredictability!”
-Guida burping will go down as a legendary MMA gif.
-Kenny did exactly what I thought he needed to do to beat Clay. Use footwork to maintain distance and pepper Clay with strikes. Fantastic execution of a very smart gameplan.
-Clay gets beat up and subbed, gets up, and runs around. Something’s wrong with this guy.
-First thing I thought when I saw Buentello was that he did not look to be in shape. I think that’s what ultimately lost him the fight.
-Mid-way during the third round I noted that Struve doesn’t seem to make full use of his size. He stood right in front of Buentello well within striking distance of the Headhunter. Mike Goldberg’s next comment? “Struve does a good job keeping his opponent at distance!” Huh?
-Final thought. Dear fighters, please stop touching gloves mid-fight. I don’t care that you guys are excited about punching each other. It’s lame.