I really want to see Rampage’s reaction to that slam. He had to have gone apeshit.

Kimbo looked awesome, Houston looked
like shit, they met in the middle and gassed the hell out, and perfectly summed up this crap season of TUF.

I couldn’t figure out why they were tired. No one did ANYTHING in that first round. Walking around the ring gassed them? Forget a 10-10 round, I wanted a 0-0 round.

The official gassing gif.

someone needs to edit in two guys carrying a 30 foot party sub through the octagon right after they both hunch over.

I love Rosenthal’s reaction.

United against their common enemy.

They only need one or two people to come out of it. Schaub has a future, Roy of course. Mitrione maybe if he decides to wants to fight.

And I wonder whhatever happened to Demico? Demarco? Whatever his name was.

Yeah, it’s relative, but Kimbo looked really good compared to my expectations. Since I thought Houston would just destroy him within 5 minutes, I have to say I was pretty impressed. This just sounds ridiculous, but I was most impressed with his gas tank and with his patience. I thought the weight cut plus the knee would lead to Kimbo blowing wind and flinging haymakers within the first round.

Considering he had about as much MMA experience as the majority of the guys that show up on TUF I thought he did a decent job. His ground work in the second round was a pleasant surprise. I’ve never been on the KIMBO SUCKS bandwagon because I’ve always believed that EliteXC saw him as a cash cow and used him as a main event fighter for his name and not his skill, so let’s not pretend he’s ever been anything but a work in progress in the MMA world and judge him accordingly.

The real story of the fight is how terrible Houston Alexander looked. I was expecting a full on kamikaze assault and instead he looked like he was impersonating Michael Bisping fighting Dan Henderson. That said, I thought he did enough to win rounds 1 and 3 as well – I was aghast at the 30-27 result from one judge. But I doubt we’ll hear another cry of poor judging for this fight. I think most of us would like to forget we even watched it.

He did perform better than I expected, but I sort of expected nothing from him. The whole fight was just comical with the exception of the second round, which admittedly was quite awesome. I kept thinking, “Oh shit! A take down by Kimbo!” Then, “Oh shit! That’s an awesome slam!” Then finally, “RNC? Kimbo’s got some semblance of a ground game!” I guess I was more startled than anything in the second round. The third was just embarrassing for both fighters.

I don’t know why some people still think Kimbo’s performance was bad..

Probably because it was.

The guy will not change over night years but is slowly learning.

Fixed it for ya.

the first round could’ve been a draw but kimbo was more active and aggressive so one might be able to give him cage control.

Getting hit in the legs, then standing there and not doing anything about it =/= “being more active and aggressive”

Maybe Houston was trying to fight a strategy that was horrible for him. He really should have stuck with what works. Distance + leg kicks is not Alexander.

That said, I still had it 29-28 for him. But he should have come out swinging. I bet he regrets not doing that.

Way too tentative. Tho even those pitter patter shots almost broke Kimbos leg in the third.

And he can actually be called a fighter now instead of a freakshow taking on cans.

To be honest, if this same exact fight had been done in EliteXC (or even in Strikeforce), it would have been seen the same as the rest of Kimbos fights. A gimme, an easy win, a joke, and so on. That the UFC put it on seems to give it legitimacy in some peoples eyes, which is sad. This isn’t directed at you, but rather some of the bizarre comments I’ve seen about how awesoem kimbo looks, his improvements, etc.

Jardine would murder Kimbo, he’s a top ten level fighter. Besides I doubt Kimbo is going to drop to light heavyweight (he was bitching about making the catchweight). Look for Kimbo to get Al-Turk or Hardonk or some new guy on that level (shame Justin McCully got cut). Look for Kimbo to headline a fight night to score ratings for Spiketv.

“doesn’t”

 and guaranteed win “for” kimbo.

but as soon as he got knocked out, everyone saw that predictable end coming days ago.

Oh it definitely was booked as a fight that Kimbo could win though. Houston Alexander was handpicked for this fight for a reason. It was specifically set up to play towards Kimbo’s strengths and away from his weaknesses(which considering how few strengths and how many weaknesses he has is quite a big deal) and so Kimbo could have a winnable fight. Hell they set him up with a guy that has only one win in the last two years (and that was outside of the UFC) and hasn’t even made it out of the first round in the UFC yet(this was only Alexander’s second fight ever that lasted longer than one round). Regardless of who anyone picked to win it can’t be overlooked that Houston Alexander was handpicked to be Kimbo’s first UFC fight for a reason, they expected a quick brutal KO and knew that there was a fair chance Kimbo would deliver it.