I always try to avoid doing my “post-fight thoughts” pieces when an event ends, choosing instead to sleep on the events to try and get things in order. With that being said, let’s get to it.
– I’m in complete agreement with Mike Fagan on Joe Rogan’s performance being less than stellar. Rogan is my favorite announcer in the business to listen to on an event by event basis but starting at the weigh-ins Joe seemed off his game. That being said, his performance during The Great Ice Spill of 2010 was top notch.
– Phil Davis dominated Brian Stann but the performance still left a lot to be desired. Davis’ punches are very wide and sloppy. Also, at this level you should be able to finish a fighter when you achieve mount or back control for somewhere around 9 minutes. Davis is very green and his upside is huge, I’m just going to need to see improvements before I’m willing to call him the future of the sport. The talk of him vs. Jon Jones being fun at this point was absurd, it’d be a murder.
– Rolles Gracie vs. Joey Beltran was bad. Anything more than that is a waste of words.
– I’ve not yet been able to watch the fight but from the live reports it sounds like Tim Hague got jobbed something awful. Sherdog scored rounds 1 and 3 for Hague with the third being a 10-8 round. Still, Chris Tuchscherer was awarded a majority decision with two 29-28 cards and a 28-28 draw.
– The “Next Anderson Silva” is not very good, so enjoy the current one.
– Melvin Guillard fought a very smart fight that showed a good amount of growth. On the occasions where he was put on his back he remained composed and found his openings to get back to his feet where he was able to control the striking game. I’d have liked to see him blend in his striking combinations a little more but he was well aware of the size and wrestling of Torres. Melvin remains the one guy at 155 that I think could hang in a boxing match with BJ Penn, but in every other aspect of the game he’d be so severely outclassed as to make it unfair.
– There isn’t much to say about Serra/Trigg except that Serra hits hard and Frank Trigg just looks done as a fighter at this point in time.
– Demian Maia’s striking looked improved but let’s not get ahead of ourselves with where it is at. Obviously, if you told me they were going to stand for the majority of the fight I’d feel good about Miller’s chances, but Maia was able to work counter punches well and Miller was hesitant to throw because of the takedown openings it can leave. Still, Maia is not going to win too many fights with his stand-up. Continued groth is a good thing though and it was a very nice bounce-back performance.
– Chael Sonnen’s wrestling is very, very good. Nate Marquardt is a talented fighter and absolutely at the top end of the division but he looked helpless for 14 minutes of that fight. Clearly you’d have to favor Anderson Silva in a big way should Sonnen ever get his crack at the champ, but I think Sonnen could give him trouble for a round or two. Five rounds is just too much time though and when one guy finishes as well as Silva and one guy doesn’t really finish anyone…
– It was clear ten seconds in to the fight that Mark Coleman was going to lose. He was looking to fight standing up rather than try to use his strength and double leg to grind out a round or two on the scorecards. Standing, Randy is much more dynamic and in the clinch Coleman just looked lost. Coleman deserves his respect as a pioneer and a legend but the gameplan was trash and he looked every second of his age.