Back in the spring, sometime in April, I believe, I was hanging out at the bowling alley at the South Point casino in Las Vegas. A group of about ten men and women gathered at the control desk, and I noticed Shawn Tompkins leading the brigade.
Today, he's dead.
I mention the story because Tompkins looked in great health, not that I got a great look up close or anything. It's a sad story, and made only sadder by the fact that these tales usually end with a diagnosis of undiagnosed heart issue, a brain aneurysm, or complications involving drugs.
Whatever the cause, my condolences go out to Tompkins' family and friends.
As for tonight's card, the main event was a fitting end to Chris Lytle's career. Fourteen minutes of brawling capped off by a beautiful guillotine.
Lytle finishes his career with a 10-10 UFC record, though he won 5 out of his last 6 fight and the loss can be fairly explained by a surgery four weeks from the event. He was never a championship-caliber fighter, though he came within one judge's decision of fighting Georges St. Pierre at the TUF 4 Finale.
Ironically, Lytle's career took off when he embraced the notion that he would never compete at that level. After the loss to Serra (and including tonight's performance), Lytle brought home 6 Fight of the Night bonuses, 1 Knockout of the Night bonus, and 3 Submission of the Night bonuses totaling $515,000.
That's an extra half-million dollars Lytle earned by making fan appreciation job number one.
- Apparently, Dan Hardy is keeping his UFC job despite losing four straight fights. Either Hardy has pictures of Dana wearing Dennis Hallman's shorts like a mask or the UK market is still some sort of priority.
- And what was Hardy thinking with that takedown attempt? A desperate attempt to steal the round? Seems like a poor time to bust your worst attribute as a fighter.
- My hats off to both WEC guys tonight. I've been harsh in my thoughts in how they would fare in the UFC, but both -- and especially Henderson -- put together huge wins tonight. Jim Miller is a legit top ten/top five guy in the UFC 155 division, and Henderson beat him convincingly.
- Miller lost the fight because he was willing to sacrifice position for submission in the first round. He looked like he wanted to prove a point, that Ben Henderson COULD be submitted. Unfortunately, Henderson kept out of trouble and made Miller pay with strikes. Those strikes opened Miller up and slowed him down by round three, allowing Henderson to really lay it on.
- I wonder if God told Ben Henderson to cool it on the God talk.
- Donald Cerrone looked a full weight class bigger than Charles Oliveira.
- I hope that ends Amir Sadollah's run on main cards. It's going to take a great protection job for him to have a spot in the UFC this time next year.
- I missed most of the prelims earlier. Couple points on what I did see: 1) There's no excuse for having Joseph Benavidez fighting for a handful of Internet MMA geeks on Facebook. 2) C.B. Dollaway and Jared Hamman each lost $65k in the second half of the Versus show.