UFC on Versus: Thoughts and Grumblings

Tonight Jon Jones shut me up again, when will I learn my lesson?  This remains to be seen as, once again, Jones avoids being hit with his beautiful Greco Roman skills, and use of a gameplan.  We also saw Junior Dos Santos take out his most legit opponent yet in Gabriel Gonzaga, notching another first round KO up for the young Brazilian.  But who deserves even more credit than these two talented fighters?

Herb Dean, and Josh Rosenthal.  Lately it seems like I'm constantly yelling at my TV screen at some incompetent referee every show that comes on, and tonight, these two men did us (read as, me) proud.  Controversy struck in the first fight of the night, where Alessio Sakara took on James Irvin, in Irvin's middleweight debut.  I wasn't surprised to see Irvin being out struck by Sakara, who is far more comfortable at this weight, and has been on a small tear himself.  Sakara landed a left hook to Irvin's eye after trading kicks and punches throughout the first round, and it seemed Irvin was poked in the eye.  Rosenthal held his judgement long enough to catch a replay and see that in all actuality, Sakara's ring and pinky knuckle actually sunk right into Irvin's eye socket, which is a completely legal blow.  The bout was called a first round TKO for Sakara, and I'm elated that the right call was made.

Next, arguably one of the best refs in MMA, Herb Dean took the ring when Cheick Kongo and Paul Buentello squared off.  This fight was full of calls that could have gone wrong, or made for a sad stoppage.  First, Buentello apparently dislocated his pinky finger while grazing Kongo's head with an uppercut.  Herb immediately saw something had gone awry and he checked on Paul, and after some confusion, brought him to the doctors as the fighter struggled to set his finger back in place himself.  It almost felt that if Herb shared Paul's frustration with Kongo's strategy, and wanted to be sure Paul had every chance to continue on.  Sure enough, Paul fixed his finger himself (this might sound odd, but chances are it's a repeated injury that he's dealt with for a while now) and jumped back into the fight ready to lay hands on Kongo.   Sadly for Buentello, Kongo was having none of it.  The next event that called for a Herb's interference, was a knee to Buentello's chin while he had three points of contact to the mat, making him a downed opponent.  He caught this immediately and deducted a point from Kongo after letting Paul know he DID NOT have 5 minutes to clear his head. 

Shortly after Paul was back in the fight, and was now eating knees to the head as he was bent over against the cage, but found himself being reprimanded for "playing the game", by touching his hand to the mat while Kongo unleashed some nasty knees, trying to cause Kongo to unintentionally foul him.  This was my favorite call of the night, simply because I've seen many a fighter try to take that route and get away with it.

Those two fights stand out the most, although Herb also handled the Brandon Vera/Jon Jones fight well when Vera landed a very, very hard upkick to Jones while he was down.  Of course, the night wasn't perfect by any means, John Howard was allowed to blast his opponent far too many times after he was clearly knocked out.  

Pardon the wall of text my friends, but in this sport we see so much bad reffing it's sad, and for as much hate as referees receive, I thought they deserved some props.  For those of you who avoided the mass invasion of English language to your computer screen, here's a quick roundup of my thoughts on tonight's show.

-Buentello is fun when it comes to a kickboxing match, but when it comes to the question "Does he belong in the UFC?" I'm afraid my answer is no.  I hope he sticks around because I find him fun to watch, but he needs to get back to Strikeforce and try to give it another go at their title.

-Watching Kongo wrestle is like watching Sean Sherk kickbox.  No doubt he's got some mean ground and pound, but how many Heavyweights will he be able to take down and hold down?  I think Kongo needs to fight Gonzaga next.

-Junior Dos Santos.  I had my doubts about him, but tonight, I'm on the hype train.  I jumped from my seat when he put Gonzaga to sleep, and I hope he has some continued success.

-Speaking of JDS, am I the only one relieved to hear a guy call for the title shot and sound hungry?  I love humble fighters, but "Whatever the UFC wants, I'm ready." is a lame answer.  You're a fighter!  You have an ego!  Don't hide it from us, but you don't have to be a jerk as well.  Fine line to walk, but at least attempt to walk it.

-Vera, Vera, Vera.  Give him some time to figure out what he needs to do with his career, and if he wants a fight, let him start from square one.  Certainly don't want to give him up to Strikeforce though.

-"Bones" is a threat to anyone in the LHW division, and even if someone can manage to tag his chin, I have a feeling it's not glass at all.  He's so young, and so talented, and so damn good...if he continues to put in the work, I openly admit that he's the future.

Hope you guys at least enjoyed the read, this is like, my second fanpost, so give me some advice, thoughts, or just troll me.  Thanks for reading!