Metal Reviews

I was really sad to not see Jones straight dominate. He should fight Teixeira next. Then Gus and then Phil Davis should get a chance. That dude impresses me and has beat Gus and now trains with the dude.

Nobody watched Shields-Maia? I know it's Shields-Maia but there was some truly great fights. Shields-Maia was as grinding as they come. Straight up American jiu-jitsu vs Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Casual fans may not have been impressed, but it was a hell of a fight. Then there's Dong Hyun Kim's KO of Erick Silva that literally came out of nowhere. Silva was picking him apart, and then bam got caught. First KO of Kim's career. Silva is now a rather pedestrian 3-3 in the UFC, but his two legit losses are againt top ranked grapplers in Kim and Jon Fitch. So I still have hope for him. Then there's Rousimir Palhares making his welterweight debut against Mike Pierce. If Palhares grabs a leg, it's over. That's it. Unfortunately for him he doesn't know how to let go after his opponent repeatedly taps and the referee jumps in to stop it, so he lost out on $50000 submission of the night bonus and got cut by the UFC. Dana White says he'll never fight in the octagon again. Then there was Dillashaw-Assuncao, which was a 3 round war. Amazing fight.

So yeah, not going into more detail. They were great, especially for a free card on a Wednesday. Casual fans can piss off.

UFC 166 next weekend. Picks?

I enjoyed the card, I was really pumped for the Silva-Kim fight, I didn't want either of them to lose. Sick KO by Kim, it's rare you see someone get hit that hard and clean. And Palhares is an idiot, he has a history of holding on to submission for too long. It's a real dick move especially considering how devastating knee locks can be. That being said, sucks to lose him because he's fun to watch, recognizable and always gives a fight a story line since everybody knows what he's gonna try to do. How hard is it to let go of a submission once your opponent taps and the ref is tugging at your arms? Just fucking let go.

My picks:

Velasquez, Cormier (though I'm tempted to go Nelson), Melendez, Jordan, Dodson, Boetsch, Lombard

My picks are 100% the same. I'd like to see Gonzaga beat Jordan, but it's nice to have some new blood in there.

The Kim-Silva fight was great. Silva was a maniac in dodging punches and looking all around superhuman. Then that fucking blow to the chin dropped him like a sack of bricks.

Ummm Velasquez (too quick), Nelson (I don't know the likeliness, but I want it to happen), Melendez, Gonzaga, Dodson.

Sanchez had the fight of the night for just being a beast. His eyebrow was split like a river, like he had a third eyebrow and he still kept coming at Melendez. Even if he walked into a lot of punches the dude was going out there to win with the knockout.

JDS v. Velasquez was what I expected. Velasquez is solid and I don't know what to make of that insistent discussion about JDS' rhabdo during the last fight. I'm curious who Cain is going to fight next. I was thinking Cormier, but apparently they won't fight and he is moving down to 205. Little sad that he chumped Roy Nelson. I can't believe he completely out-wrestled Nelson given his jiu jitsu training, but Cormier is a good wrestler as he showed.

And Alganov (the Chechen dude) is a fucking beast. Stoked to see how he develops.

Most likely Velasquez will fight Februcio Werdum next. Uncle Dana hinted at it a few times and Werdum hasn't fought since he submitted Big Nog in June.

Great fights from top to bottom! And Sanchez has had some fight of the year candidates (and winners!) in his career but that might have been the best. Go watch Sanchez vs Clay Guida, vs Nick Diaz and vs Karo Parisyan for some other excellent bouts. Especially against Guida.

And yeah, Alganov looked very promising. Man these Sambo Russians are incredible fighters, Alganov, Nurmagomedov, Khabilov are all complete studs.

It's fight week, again. Picks? I can only think of the main and co-main, too lazy to look up the rest right now. But I take Machida and Pearson but Guillards KO power can cause Pearson problems.

I only recognize Machida and Guillard out of all of those. I choose tattoos over skins all the way down the card.

You don't know Muñoz or Pearson? Muñoz alone has fought in the UFC like 13 times. Won 5 of his last 6, the only loss in the span is to undefeated champion Chris Weidman. Pearson hasn't been around as long, but is still not a new face by no means.

Rest of main card (admittedly not the strongest in terms of "name power" but fuck "name power"):

Jimmo (but I'd like to see Manuwa take it and remain undefeated), Parke (Tuck is good, just hasn't fought in a long while), Sakara (desperate for a win, also don't know a thing about his opponent), Lineker (probably the best KO artist at 125, but can he actually make weight this time? He's 3-0 as a flyweight, but has yet to actually make the 126 cut-off).

Undercard has lots of young still developing talent. Like Jimy Hettes, Al Iaquinta, Piotr Hallman, Luke Barnatt, Andrew Craig (just beat Chris Leben), and Michael Kuiper.

Duh. But without knowing who people are, it is kinda hard to guesstimate who is going to win. I'll totally watch it before my Halloween parties this weekend if it starts at 3pm in the afternoon. But even then I don't think I have Fox Sports 2...

I'm just being difficult.

Luckily here in Canada we have a channel called SportsNet 360 and every UFC free card and prelim are on there. None of this fox sports 1 and 2 nonsense.

Things were on FX, Fuel, and Fox, but now it seems to be focused into Fox Sports and Fox Sports 2. Better, but not great yet.

Edit: I have the station, but not HD. I may just stream it over the 'net.

Pretty big Bellator event this weekend, was suppose to be on PPV but Tito Ortiz fractured his neck just over a week ago so now it's free on Spike TV. 3 title fights, 1 being an interim, plus pretty much every "bigger" name on their roster is on this card. Rampage Jackson will still be debuting soon, just not this weekend. He'll fight fellow UFC vet The Mexicutioner Joey Beltran who just lost to Fabio Maldonaldo a few weeks ago dropping him to 2-6 in his last 8 fights. (Still better than Ortiz's recent streak) anybody tuning in?

By anybody I mean either of you. Ha.

I was considering checking it out before Ortiz was hurt, but now that it's free I'll totally watch it. My roommate is semi-following Ben Askren for his NCAA wrestling roots and hopes to see him make it big enough in Bellator to hop to UFC so he'll probably be up for it. Excited to see Kongo possibly whip up on somebody, which he was simply unable to do whenever I seen that ripped motherfucker on UFC.

There are three UFC events coming up next Wed, next Saturday and then the GSP-Hendricks event. Pretty stoked.

What did you think of the Pearson Guillard fiasco?

Chandler-Alvarez II makes the event a must watch. Even Jeff Curran is a treat to watch, and Daniel Strauss (his opponent) is a monster of a 145er.

Askren is already a very nice 12-0 and the reigning defending Bellator Welterweight Champion. He is currently a free agent that the UFC has expressed interest in, but after all the bullshit that happened between the UFC and Bellator when Eddie Alvarez became a free agent, the UFC is just playing the waiting game. Bellator has a "matching period" with all fighters when they hit free agency, and Dana doesn't want them to match any offer made to Askren. Their matching period is up next summer, so expect to see him in the UFC then. Bjorn Rebney (Bellators version of Dana White) said that if the UFC offered Askren a contract and immediately a shot at GSP's title, they would waive the matching period and let him walk. Dana is smarter than that, he knows what game they are playing and will just wait it out. It's bullshit when business gets in the way of fights/fighters, but afterall it is the fight business.

As for Guillard-Pearson, when I was watching it live I thought it was an illegal knee and Pearson should of won by DQ. But after all the different replays that have come out since then, I think it was legal and the fight should of continued, or Guillard should of won by 1st round TKO due to Doctor Stoppage. Shit sucks either way, but they are rematching in March. I think Guillard showed that he is definitely the stronger and slightly faster man. But Pearson is a counter fighter, so he never really got a chance to get going. The rematch should definitely be interesting, but that's a long time for both men to train for only one opponent.

That main event was sick. I wanted Alvarez to win pretty quick into the fight, even if Chandler is a fucking beast. That end was a close one though. And Strauss is from Cincinnati so between that and his dread pigtails, I wanted to see him dominate. And he basically did that. Curran wasn't bad, but he controlled that fight even if that kind of control can be boring at times. Him and Chandler had some sick takedowns. The event didn't do much for me overall. The first fight was decent striking, but the second fight was basically won because the one guy had no ground game whatsoever. And the King Mo-Newton fight was pretty boring. King Mo was way too gassed to be pulling off any takedowns. Fun to see Big Country in his corner though.

The rematch will be cool to see. Thinking about this knee compared to the one that Curran delivered to Straus is kinda funny. Strauss was practically KOed, and they kept the fight going! Regardless of whether the Guillard-Pearson knee was legal or not, protecting someone from that kind of damage seems worth calling the fight as a NC.

Belfort-Hendo tonight! Who wins this 5 round rematch? Hendo won the first fight back in 2006 by unanimous decision.