UFC 142: I told you so and other thoughts.
by jim-ma on Jan 15, 2012 10:05 AM EST
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PrintUFC 142 went down last night with the main event and co main event ending as I predicted (albeit a little quicker than I thought). Having said that it did not take a genius to see how these fights would go. Below I will go through my thoughts on what happened in the two main fights, sympathise a bit with Terry Etim and then make a few contraversial comments about Mario Yamasaki.
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Photo from Sportsnet.ca |
Aldo Knocks Mendes Out
I absolutely thought that Jose Aldo would be able to nullify Mendes' take downs for the most part, but I had no idea that he would be able to do it so effortlessly, even if he did use one sneaky grab of the fence to keep upright. Then problem for Mendes in this fight was that if you are fighting a well rounded fighter like Aldo and you have only one legitimate route to victory, you are going to quickly become very predictable. That is doubly bad if you fail to implement your game plan. Mendes was frustrated by Aldo's ability to stay up and forgot technique for a moment, diving in recklessly headfirst for a shot and a ate a knee for his troubles. That was the end of that one.
Then it was really fun to watch Jose Aldo burst straight out into the crown and I was a little bit worried at one point because he disappeared and I feared he had drowned in a sea of Brazilian adulation. Luckily the sobering monotony of a Joe Rogan interview via translation brought him round.
Belfort Submits Johnson
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Photo from sports.yahoo.com |
Going in to the fight, most people were talking about either Old Vitor or whether or not Johnson could weather the early storm and wait for Vitor to gas. Those commentaries look pretty funny now. In reality Johnson's weight cut issues always meant he was going to come into this fight seriously depleted and that is probably why we saw him be so aggressive for the first few minutes. Belfort just played things relatively safe and technical until it kind of seemed like Rumble finished himself off, regardless of the choke Vitor put him in.
Barboza Kicks Etim in the Head
That headline is as unspectacular as this kick was spectacular. I really thought that Rogan and Goldie were over egging Barboza's pudding a little bit, because while Barboza landed some leg kicks, I really did not think Etim looked that troubled. I felt like Etim would go for broke in round 3 as he figured Barboza out. Lucky for me I was watching the fight by myself so no-one heard me shout that at the TV moments before Barboza landed this bomb. Anyway, as much as I love Etim, I was stoked to see this kick and went and demonstrated it for my girlfriend with effortless grace. Ahem.
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GIF from mmanation |
Contraversial Disqualification of Erick Silva
Here is a video of the fight, look towards the last couple of minutes for the controversy. Oh, and get there quick because no doubt the UFC will force the video of the site in good time. There has been some discussion on what exactly the back of the head means, just exactly when does it merge with the side of the head. Well it is very confusing and there is no clear rule for referees to follow. I am not going into the fairness of the decision, just to say that I think since it is hard to say in a clear cut way whether it was right or not, criticism of the referee is harsh. Now, it is one thing for us fans to moan about referees, but for Joe Rogan to pull the guy up on it in front of thousands of angry Brazilians and a disappointed fighter, was absolutely unprofessional, not to mention mean spirited.
The Future for Anthony Johnson
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Photo via espn.go.com |
Let's be clear. He was ill when near to his target weight because he attempted to make weight from crazily above his target. Not only that, it has happened twice before. He absolutely ought to be cut and in the future, other organisation should be wary about his ability to come in at his contracted weight.
The featherweight Division
It is easy to say that a division looks when you have one guy who is head and shoulders above the rest, look at the middleweight division with Anderson Silva. I think there are plenty of good fighters at 145lbs but Jose Aldo is just something super special. I am not really sure who is there to provide a legitimate challenge for him after Mendes. I wonder how the fight with Frankie Edgar could be made possible. Having said that, I have not made my mind up how Edgar's fight with Ben Henderson is going to go, maybe he will not even be in a position for a champ vs champ super fight.
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Oh and I forgot to say
The Barboza KO on Etim was the most knocked out I have ever seen anyone, but I would happily be proved wrong if there GIFs are out there…
http://jim-ma.blogspot.com/
hendo vs. bisping
Tank abott vs. john Matua, rampage vs. Wandy in pride(possibly ufc as well), Evans vs liddell (liddell shit himself he was hit so hard)
by benten20 on Jan 15, 2012 10:40 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Franklin/Marquardt
is bad/awesome, too.
BECW Season 1 Champs - K-1 Level Predictions Team
BECW Season 2 - Cecil Peoples Champs
yes, thats what im thinking.
he was stiff!
"Here we are with Seraldo Babalu, you did an awesome job, saw why you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu, getting an awesome submission there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring." - Tito (the Head) Ortiz - Great Commentator, or Greatest Commentator.
"GSP is me."
by El Pablo Diablo on Jan 16, 2012 4:35 PM EST up reply actions
Yeah, the other Nate.
BECW Season 1 Champs - K-1 Level Predictions Team
BECW Season 2 - Cecil Peoples Champs
Barboza KO = Me standing up and yelling "HOLY SHIT" over and over to the point where my neighbours knocked on my door to make sure I was ok.
"If you think, you're late. If you're late, you muscle. If you muscle, you get tired. If you tired, you die. When you die is when you tap..."
-Saulo Ribeiro
You’re right about Rogan jamming the ref post-fight. He didn’t need to put the guy on the spot like that, regardless whether the DQ was appropriate, especially trying to substitute a slow-mo replay for what the ref experienced and saw in real time.
by ( . Y . ) on Jan 15, 2012 11:44 AM EST reply actions 3 recs
yep
Mario made the wrong call, which WILL happen sometimes. I’m a lot more inclined to forgive it in a ref than a judge because of the importance of splitsecond timeliness.
But he’s the fucking ref and it’s his job, not yours. So stfu, Joe.
This is an oule.
by some schmuck in texas on Jan 15, 2012 12:38 PM EST up reply actions
So we're no longer allowed to criticisize people when they make mistakes?
I applaud doing something similar to what Jim Gray did on Showtime.
Oh, I forgot. Boo hoo poor Yamasaki. He must of gotten his feelings hurt. Not to mention he has a history of being terrible. This attitude that we have to protect Yamasaki is absurd.
by discoandherpes on Jan 15, 2012 11:38 PM EST up reply actions
I"m not interested in lauding Aldo’s takedown defense too much given that he grabbed and held the fence for a full three seconds to avoid getting suplexed late in the round. That was a big deal since he was able to stay on the feet, eventually break Mendes grip and land that knee to end the fight just before the buzzer. Aldo’s the much more dangerous guy, but I liked what I saw from Mendes during and after the fight.
by Charlie Custer on Jan 15, 2012 12:01 PM EST reply actions
First of all
That was not going to be a suplex. Secondly, when Mendes did it without Jose holding the fence, Aldo was up in a second.
Ruining Your Special Night with all caps and the like. Be prepared to be disappointed. But not by us. Because of us.... We're not disappointing, it's the things we say to you, and.... fuck it, everyone else sucks. Mmkay?
That was his best chance at up-ending Aldo. Aldo was prepared for the next one, and Mendes seemed to lose a little juice after that and just tried to hold on. It’s interesting how people dismiss the fence grab (the most blatant I’ve ever witnessed in a fight of this magnitude) as inconsequential. For Mendes to win, he was going to have to take advantage of the few opportunities he had to get the fight where he wanted it. At the very least, it’s reasonable to assume that had Aldo not grabbed the fence, Mendes would have survived and likely won the round. Fans of Aldo rejoice at the ending, and truly Aldo is the only fighter I can think of who could have ended a fight exactly that way, but I was disappointed that this fight didn’t turn into a battle of will and attrition which it easily could have it may have if not for that turn of events. To win that sort of fight, Mendes would have had to do everything right. It wasn’t going to happen, but it would have been interesting to see it go further.
by Charlie Custer on Jan 15, 2012 10:40 PM EST up reply actions
It was an instinctive mistake
That he didn’t repeat. He defended the same take down immediately afterward.
by discoandherpes on Jan 15, 2012 11:39 PM EST up reply actions
Again you are mistaken
Aldo clearly would have won the round regardless. Chad would have had him down shortly, and Aldo made him look foolish up until the standing back control. Aldo would have come into the second round and finished it there, similarly to how it actually happened, as Chad clearly wasn’t getting the takedown.
Ruining Your Special Night with all caps and the like. Be prepared to be disappointed. But not by us. Because of us.... We're not disappointing, it's the things we say to you, and.... fuck it, everyone else sucks. Mmkay?
by halitosis on Jan 16, 2012 2:39 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
speculation,
just as good as fact.
"Here we are with Seraldo Babalu, you did an awesome job, saw why you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu, getting an awesome submission there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring." - Tito (the Head) Ortiz - Great Commentator, or Greatest Commentator.
"GSP is me."
by El Pablo Diablo on Jan 16, 2012 4:38 PM EST up reply actions
it was pretty clear
From the first takedown attempt you kind of already knew that Aldo was not gonna lose last night. I knew it was over at that point.
by benten20 on Jan 15, 2012 12:33 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
On Fence-holding
If Mendes was able to get Aldo down— and only the fence-hold prevented that— maaaaaaybe he could have dumped Aldo, hurt him, isolated a limb during the scramble, induced a mistake, and won. I happen to doubt that. The significance of that grab, however, should not be discounted. Was Yamasaki going to ding him one measly point?
What significance?
It was an instinctual reaction. He corrected himself, and when Chad tried to do the same thing again, Jose popped right back up. Its one thing if the second time Chad did it he was able to keep Jose on the ground, that didn’t happen so stop whining about something completely unimportant.
Huge significance.
It led to the end of the fight. It’s quite illegal — it’s cheating — what he did, and since he was doing it repeatedly from the time Mendes had his back against the fence you cannot simply dismiss it as “instinctual.” I am not asserting that Mendes wins that fight if not for the deliberate fence grab, but he sure as hell wins the round. Yeah, the knee could have happened fifteen seconds into round two, but I’m just having a hard time listening to people’s raves about Aldo’s takedown defense, that’s all. I’m putting an asterisk next to his “great takedown defense!”
by Charlie Custer on Jan 15, 2012 10:52 PM EST up reply actions
It lead to the end of the fight
Aldo grabbing the fence didn’t end the fight. Aldo’s knee smashing into Mendez’s face did.
It is not like a pulled a Tito Ortiz. He should have been warned for fence grabbing, that I agree. But lets be honest it didn’t play that much into the fight like it did in the first Rashad/Ortiz fight.
Aldo has had historically great tdd and usually pops right back up. But an asterisk next to it, but at the end of the day only you really give a shit about an asterisk. Aldo didn’t intentionally cheat and adjusted afterward. It’s something that is going to happen because it is a natural reaction. You should be warned once and docked a point on the second.
by discoandherpes on Jan 15, 2012 11:43 PM EST up reply actions
Look, I’ll agree that Aldo is the far superior fighter and athlete to anyone in the FW division and probably the sport and that he’s damn hard to take down if you’ll stop asserting that Aldo’s repeated fence grab was not intentional. That exact scenario plays out in one out of every three fights and very rarely does a fighter reach out and hold on to the fence for that long to prevent himself from going down. It was tactical on the part of Aldo and yes, after he was finally warned, he stopped doing it, but by that point Mendes was recuperating from the effort. One thing leads to another and I would not argue the likelihood of Aldo catching Mendes at some point in the ensuing rounds, but what I’m saying is that the fight does not end the way it does if Aldo does not illegally rebuff Mendes’ initial and clearly most explosive throw attempt. Aldo is the man, and apparently also a possible spiritual leader for the masses.
by Charlie Custer on Jan 16, 2012 8:44 AM EST up reply actions
Repeated fence grab?
When I saw it he grabbed then fence once. The second time Mendez went for the same slam and failed without Aldo grabbing the fence.
by discoandherpes on Jan 17, 2012 6:53 AM EST up reply actions
He was actually grabbing the fence off and on from the moment he was up against it. The most noticeable was the grab to prevent the slam, but he was clearly using it consistently to prevent Mendes from wielding him around from the very start. He did stop after the penultimate fence-grab, and perhaps sensing his opponent tire began to focus his effort on breaking Mendes’ grip, but that was a good 25-30 seconds after he’d first allowed Mendes to take his back. None of this takes away from his ability as a fighter, but it certainly led to the finish of this fight. Those who argue that the sequence was inconsequential in the fight either disrespect Mendes too much or think too highly of Aldo. He’s human and will clearly resort to questionable tactics to win a high-stakes match — as will most.
by Charlie Custer on Jan 17, 2012 12:49 PM EST up reply actions
I’ll have to go back to the tape to verify or shit on your claim.
by discoandherpes on Jan 17, 2012 3:14 PM EST up reply actions
Fedor vs Lindland
Aldo vs Mendes….though it was still kinda bogus on behalf of both. Maybe Mendes can work his way back up, he didn’t seem to complain about it though.
Re the Barboza KO
I went apeshit and jumped up shouting – my GF who is not into MMA at all and was in the zone reading a book even hopped up when she watched the replay of what I was screaming at. Got to love those moments!
especially whenagainstholding the fence…
by taptomyarmbar on Jan 16, 2012 8:06 AM EST up reply actions
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