– To start off, I just want to say once more what I was harping on during the live results last night: The referees assigned to last night’s fights were embarrassingly bad. There were mistakes made by the third man in basically every fight that was on the broadcast. From standing up fighters who are actively working in someone’s half guard to separating fighters who are working for position as well as throwing strikes against the fence to the completely disgusting display where Yancy Medeiros was kneed in the groin and the ref forced him to continue after only a few seconds rest. I sincerely hope the CSAC reviews referee performance and that these men lose their jobs. They’re clearly incapable of enforcing established rules and I’d rather not see fighter safety rest in the hands of the incompetent.
– Speaking of Yancy Medeiros, he was a nice surprise. Raul Castillo is a really well respected submission wrestler and was 6-0 with no fight going to the judges. Medeiros was undefeated coming in but without the same credentials as Castillo and this was his first fight outside Hawaii. Rather than being overwhelmed or willing to simply play “the opponent” to Castillo, he fought like a veteran with good use of his size and striking. The lack of power on his shots was a little troubling, but he spent the fight looking like the more modern fighter to Castillo’s wooden stand-up and weak shots.
– Tarec Saffiedine was very impressive. For all the striking that he showed yesterday, he actually possesses a very solid ground game which should make him reasonably formidable in the Strikeforce welterweight division. James Terry is not a bad fighter by any means, but he was outclassed standing and just couldn’t get the fight to the ground to save his life. The fight was over once it was clear that the more versatile Saffiedine would be able to dictate where the bout took place.
– I don’t ever want to see Luke Rockhold on a Challengers show again. The guy has good charisma and a ton of skill. The promotion should take advantage of these chances to create homegrown stars rather than recycling the same featured fighters on the Showtime and CBS shows. If his next fight is on a Challengers show I will give up believing that they have the ability to create stars, which is a vital part of the promotional game.
– Women’s MMA came out as a big loser last night. The fight was totally one sided and very uninteresting. It was clear in the first round that Hashi had nothing to offer Kaufman and the fact that Sarah didn’t ever go for the finish just meant that fans were left with no motivation to continue watching. This was supposed to be a high level fight between the top two females at 135 pounds and rather than feeling like high level MMA it felt like watching a sparring session.
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