Morning After UFC 135 Thoughts (Civil War!)

I think this card was a disappointment overall. There were a few bright spots but mostly... whatever. Thankfully some genius here at Bloody Elbow came up with the idea of having a pick 'em civil war, so we do end up being emotionally invested even in a mostly crappy event like last night's. And it's always funny having to root for a guy not to finish the fight in this round and root for the guy you need to lose to just hold on a few more seconds and make it out of this round so he can get blasted next round for 11 points instead of 7 or 9 or whatever it is. Fun times. OK, last night...

We started off with a quick KO of a guy who looked like he had never fought before. Romero took a couple of weak, ill-advised shots on Te Huna and got bear mauled for his trouble, by Te Huna, who came to, you know, actually fight. The weirdest part of this wasn't Romero's amateurishness or cluelessness -- it was the moaning after the TKO. The guy was lying on the ground with the ref acting as trauma first responder, and he was just making some weird noises like he had been beaten with bats like Joe Pesci in Casino. Watch the end of the fight again if you didn't hear that the first time. I was really surprised because he didn't take a serious beating -- he just got tagged once or twice -- but he seemed like he was due for an emergency room visit by the sounds he was making.

After that Escovedo was outclassed by Mizugaki in another finish, this time a 2nd round beatdown.

The next fight was bleh as a clearly outclassed Yagin couldn't do anything to push a clearly self-consumed Assuncao... Ass threatened to make it entertaining with some finger-waving and a little flashiness, but failed to deliver. 

Nick Ring showed up to collect a paycheck against The Barbarian, and he did. Once or twice he threatened to make it fight between two parties, but then changed his mind.

Tony "WOW" Ferguson... The "WOW" is mine, not his. Just, WOW. Very impressed by this kid, and one of the very few high points of this disappointing night. Total domination, impressive striking. Very fun to watch. A few of you had mentioned him, saying to pay attention because he's the real deal. Thanks for the heads-up, you were right. I'll watch him fight anytime. KO, rd 1.

These aren't in chrono order, they're in the order I remember them... let's see...

Mark Hunt! I was on a Skype conference call with a bunch of friends (next best thing to being there) for the event, and it was around this fight that LSU was demonstrating the difference between SEC football and whatever sport that is they play in those other conferences. So my friends were all switching back and forth and every time they got to the fight, all they saw were two gassed heavies staggering around. I'm the biggest MMA fan of the bunch, so naturally they all heaped grief on me for this fight, like it was my fault the UFC decided to fight fat heavies at altitude. But they generally appreciated Hunt's effort to finish Rothwell even though they couldn't understand how he couldn't. One of them even speculated that Hunt must have pillow hands (LOL, he was serious, too). I mean, what do you say to that? I linked the Tushererererererererer fight, to no avail of course, but whatever. As for me, I didn't really enjoy this one as much as I wanted to because I kept worrying someone was going to be so fatigued that he'd end up leaving himself open to a career-ending blast -- I was really nervous about that, especially when Rothwell had his hands on his knees 2 feet away from Hunt and when Hunt would keep turning and walking away from Rothwell as though the fight had ended. It was almost unsafe to have fat heavies fighting in Co.

Diaz! This was another high point for me. I am not really a Diaz Bros. fan in that I hate listening to them talk and I think they seem like unhappy, mean people in general, but I will always pay to watch a Diaz Brother fight. Period. And Got Damn as Sam L Jackson would say. That was the crispest, sharpest, most focused Nate Diaz I have ever seen, and it was truly mirabile visu. Of course my friends all ended up complaining that it was just a mismatch, but fuck them. I was entertained, which is really the whole point. I hope this Diaz keeps showing up.

The Travis Browne fight was ever bit as shitty as I expected it to be. Another boring HW waste of time.

I think many of us started getting nervous for Hughes when BJ walked up to him and punched him the head for a 19 second KO or whatever it was. I think there's pretty much a consensus here on BE that as much as we love watching these guys fight, we don't want any of them ending up with brain damage or a legacy-distorting losing streak at the end of their careers just to entertain us one more time. Fuck that, retire, Matt. Please. Coach, corner, etc., but stay out of the Octagon. Or maybe become a ref or a judge. I don't want to watch him get hit like that again, though. Also, that looked like a late stoppage to me. From my POV, it seemed like he was done fighting several seconds before the ref stepped in.

And now, Jon Jones. What to say about that? I guess...

Do you fight at 205? if so, good luck to you, sir. If you don't, keep being smart.


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