Struve made short work of the overmatched Chase Gormley. Struve is a dead ringer for former King of Pancrase Semmy Schilt. He’s an absolute giant of man, standing at a listed 6-11. Gormley wanted no part of Struve’s reach advantage and took him down quickly. But Struve was busy from the bottom, constantly searching out submissions and making his way to his feet. He shocked at least one member of the audience, this one, by taking Gormley down and eventually tapping him with a triangle choke. Gormley would have been absolutely murdered by Rothwell and Struve is ready for stiffer competition.

MichaelDavSmith UFC 104: Kyle Kingsbury improves to 8-2 with a split decision win over Razak Al-Hassan, who falls to 6-2.

Scores were 29-28, 29-28, 28-29.

Kyle Kingsbury took a split decision from Razak Al-Hassan in a 205 pound bout. The pro Kingsbury crowd was rabid for the California kid. Everyone else was underwhelmed. The fight consisted mostly of awkward standup and the clinch game. I tell you this: if your name is Al-Hassan in post 9/11 America, you need to be more entertaining than that.

Rob Kimmons has “toughness” listed as one of his strengths in his bio. This is usually a pretty good sign that he is going to be the MMA equivalent of a baeball player labelled as “scrappy.” By which I mean “not good.”

Crowd was unsure whether to call Jorge Rivera “whore-hey” or “george.” See what Jorge Gurgel did to our discourse? Best part of the fight was when an official slipped when running up to the cage to let the seconds in. I am easily entertained.

Kimmons was as good as his word: beaten, bloodied, and stopped int he third round.

And, somewhere, Dana White is smiling that Okami lost.

Chael Sonnen and Yushin Okami are two phenomenal fighters. Despite that, this fight was on the undercard; allegedly because of Okami’s reputation as a boring fighter. That was certainly not the case here. The two spend most of three rounds trading punches, with Sonnen consistently scoring more often with a crisp left hand. He also puncuated rounds with big takedowns, earning a unanimous decision. Good fight.