UFC 106: Ortiz vs. Griffin 2

[Turd Ferguson]

I'm calling Baroni "The Brooklyn Brawler" for now on. Talk about just absolute domination from Amir besides the first 1:30 of the first round. Amir looked very impressive, and because he's never had any pro fights, he's going to have his ups and downs for another couple years. I think he's progressing just fine though. He just needs to do something about his rat tail and his awful entrance music choices. He always picks something horrendous.

Baroni's a good jobber to have around for the Welterweight division. Too much spraytanning and not enough training seemed to be his problem... his cardio is horrendous. Towards the end of the round, he threw one last home run punch and he nearly collapsed.

Lil Nog looked very good, and he's going to be huge for the UFC in the Light Heavyweight Division, already establishing himself as one of the best in the division. Luis Cane is one of the top prospects the UFC, and he flat out got dominated. Lil Nog for the most part has been on a roll for awhile, and I can't wait to see how he does from here on out. The Light Heavyweight division has taken a hit all of a sudden in terms of talent, and Lil Nog should hopefully get the same amount of respect his twin brother does from UFC fans. I bet a lot of casual fans were wondering why Big Nog lost so much weight all of a sudden last night.

I'm a huge Ben Saunders fan, and as much as I should like Marcus Davis because he's from Boston, I can't stand the guy. I'm so glad Saunders came back the way he did from the Swick fight and embarrassed Davis.

The Koscheck/Johnson fight was basically what would happen if the Three Stooges had an MMA fight. Just a complete circus, and I know Koscheck was milking the living hell out of his eye injury. His post-fight comments were ridiculous as well, and if he winds up fighting Dan Hardy, I'm sure Hardy would destroy him. I think Johnson for the most part looked very good, he just still has a lot of work ahead of him in order to get better. I think the weight cutting just really gassed him, and he should really consider moving to middleweight. Either way, the guy is a future champion.

I'm a huge fan of Tito Ortiz, and for whatever reason, I can't stand Forrest Griffin. I was really hoping Tito would win, and I thought he did win, as he barely took the first round in my eyes. I have no idea what the judge who scored Griffin 30-27 was thinking. Either way, Tito showed that after such a long layoff, that he's still one of the best, and now that he's gotten his first fight under his belt, he's going to come out and prove that he absolutely belongs in the Octagon. I thought it was a great fight though, and it's good that Forrest won. As one of the most popular fighters in the company, the UFC needs him to be successful so they can continue to sell him as a fighter, and sell the success of The Ultimate Fighter.

I heard that the next coaches of TUF were supposed to be Tito and Chuck. That would be a huge moneymaking season and fight for the UFC, and so would Tito and Forrest. I think a third fight between Tito and Forrest is something I'd much rather see as well.

 

[jmt225]

Man... what a disappointing show for me.

The first two Rounds of the Tito/Forrest fight were awesome, but that 3rd was horrific. Like Fizzy said, and I yelled the exact same thing last night while watching, what the fuck was Tito thinking? Seriously? He just stood there and did nothing. I mean, it just blew my mind. I still cannot believe it. I could not be more disappointed in Tito right now. I've never seen him fight so horribly.

Anyway, I gave Tito the first 2 rounds 10-9, and gave Forrest a 10-8 3rd Round, so I had the fight at a draw. But whatever. With the way Tito was fighting in the 3rd, he honestly deserved to lose. Again, what the fuck was he doing? And why in the hell did he not work on his head movement all this time? That's the way to beat someone like Forrest on the feet, as Anderson showed. Also, I cringed when Tito started talking about injuries in the post fight interview. I was hoping he wouldn't do that for once. But props to Forrest for sticking up for Tito when Tito got booed because of it. Forrest is a really, really classy guy, and even though Tito's my favorite fighter of all time, I still couldn't be happier for Forrest winning this fight. I'm very much looking forward to a 3rd fight, and hopefully Tito comes in better prepared for that one. I really think he needs a new camp. The people he's with now just isn't getting the job done. Reminds me of Ken Shamrock, as the Lion's Den was what was holding him down for so long.

As far as the rest of the show....

Josh Koscheck is a slimy little fuck and I now hate him again. Whether he got poked in the eye or not, that post fight interview... man, fuck him. He's still that moron we all saw in the 1st season of the Ultimate Fighter. The douchebag hasn't changed at all. Also, I don't think he's all that good of a fighter, IC. I think Johnson was just heavily overhyped, especially by myself. If Kos gets in there with GSP, he'll get absolutely destroyed, like he did the first time. Hell, if Diego loses to BJ Penn like I expect, I'd love to see Diego go back up to 170 and beat the living shit out of Kos like he did on The Ultimate Fighter (one of my favorite fights of all time). The 2nd fight they had was bullshit, so a 3rd needs to happen, and I for one would LOVE to see it, because I know my man Diego would absolutely destroy that fucking despicable clown..

But at least Amir came through for me and defeated someone who's even more despicable than Koscheck. I really wish Amir could have finished the fight, though. However, the one good thing that came out of Johnson losing is that he'll have to fight a scrub again, and hopefully they'll feed him Baroni. Now, Johnson, as I said, has been overhyped, but he'll still knock out that prick Baroni and that's something I'd LOVE to see. But props to Amir winning his first fight since winning TUF 7. Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for him.

Lil' Nog was fucking AWESOME last night! I know Marquis had to be going nuts, but man... I was happy for him as well. With another performance like that, Lil' Nog should definitely be next in line to get the winner of Machida/Shogun 2. Luiz Cane is no joke, and Nog just destroyed him. Watching that fight, there's no way you'd expect that was Lil' Nog's debut in the UFC, but it was and he was fantastic.

Ben Saunders killed Marcus Davis last night too, however. Very disappointing. But still... while I like Saunders a lot and believe he's a very good fighter and an even classier guy, Marcus Davis did not get beat last night by a better fighter, but instead a much bigger fighter. Why he took that fight in the first place, I'll never know. But a lot of Welterweights are going to have a big problem with Saunders as long as he continues to use that clinch and those devastating knees.

How about that triangle by Kendall Grove, though? Was that beautiful or what? Definitely a candidate for Submission of the Year. He pulled that baby out of nowhere. I was worried for a little while there, but he held on, patiently waited until the time was perfect, and locked that sucker in, like I said, out of nowhere. Awesome stuff.

And lastly, my main man George Sotiropoulos from The Ultimate Fighter 6 looked absolutely tremendous against Jason Dent for his return bout, just as I expected. I'm telling you guys right now, look out for Sotiropoulos in the future. He very well could work his way up that Welterweight ladder within the next year or so. He'd definitely beat the piss out of Koscheck, that's for sure.

All in all, very good show. I'm just disappointed in some of the performances by a couple of my favorite fighters, Tito and Rumble, in particular.

 

[jmt225]

Just thought I'd pass this along to everybody:

Dana White's weigh-in day video blog takes you through the Friday before UFC 106. It's interesting to see the fighters standing in line to enter the Mandalay Bay weigh-in area. Josh Koscheck is standing with no Anthony Johnson present (3:40 mark). When asked where he is, Koscheck says he heard Johnson passed out trying to make the weight. When you finally see Johnson (4:45 mark), he does confirm that he had some issues and says he was "dehydrated."

If he did struggle, it's the second straight fight with weigh-in woes. Back in Los Angeles for UFC 104, Johnson, needing to make 170 pounds could only get to 176. Ninety minutes before the weigh-in, he was being carried through the streets of L.A. back to the hotel. It may be time for the 25-year-old to consider a move to middleweight or he really needs to shed some beef and walk around closer to 190 between fights. Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole tweeted on Saturday night that Johnson was back up to 200. Once Koscheck started working him over on the ground, Johnson seemed to gas pretty quickly in the second round. Johnson lost via rear-naked choke.

Not to take anything away from that ********er Koscheck, because even though I hate his guys, the little prick still fought very well Saturday and put on a hell of a performance, but I think this weight cut is why Rumble looked so terrible in the 2nd Round. You could tell he was gassed, and when it went to the ground... there just wasn't enough left in him to defend himself.

So I take back what I said earlier about Rumble being overhyped, but at the same time... I think he should strongly consider just moving up to 185. If this is the type of shit he has to go through to cut to 170, then it's just not worth it. Besides, this loss to Koscheck sends him back down the Welterweight ladder big time, and at Middleweight he'd have a fresh start. All it'll take at Middleweight is 2, maybe 3, good victories for Rumble to get himself a Title shot, whereas at Welterweight he'll have to do a lot more than that to get to GSP.

 

[INDYjon22]

Yeah, that would explain a lot from his performance on saturday. He looked really fuckin tired going into that second round. He should consider moving up to the rather lackluster Middleweight division. He would have an easier time getting to a title shot in my opinion and I think he has more exciting fights for him there. Unless of course he does start cutting weight before his fights are even announced I think he will always have trouble with weight cutting.