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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor
UFC on Fox 7 was this past Saturday. I gave the show a 7.0 out of 10 in large part because it was a free show. I did quite enjoy half the main card, though, so that definitely factored in to my score. I watched this card with three casual MMA fans so I'll provide a little of what they thought as well. Let's start with the positives.
GREAT: Matt Brown overwhelms another opponent
Jordan Mein was coming in off an impressive first round knockout of Dan Miller five weeks ago while Brown had won his last four fights. This one had all the ingredients of an entertaining slugfest and they absolutely delivered. Both guys swarmed the other at different times throughout the fight, but it was Brown who kept coming forward again and again. Mein wilted in the face of Brown's relentless assault in the second round and started turtling up, forcing the ref to jump in and stop it.
I'm not sure where Brown goes from here, but I'll definitely be watching. They got Fight of the Night honors for this and they deserved it. My friends loved this fight, and they want to see more of Matt Brown whenever they can.
GOOD: Josh Thomson stops Nate Diaz with a brutal headkick
Diaz kept lowering his hands throughout the fight, taunting Thomson. Two of my friends immediately said that he's going to get knocked out by doing that. Right after they said that Nate ate the first headkick from Thomson and seemed unfazed. That caught us all by surprise as it was a pretty damn good kick, and Nate just took it. Thomson kept backing up and backing up, and it seemed like he was setting Nate up for something. However, Nate had his hands down most of the fight so that probably wasn't really that necessary, to be honest.
Quick note, I always find it oddly mesmerizing when they show a slow-mo replay of someone being hit, especially in the head. Seeing their skull move around is absolutely brutal and a good reminder of the dangers of head injuries.
Thomson caught Nate with another headkick in the second round and that finished him. Nate actually leaned into the kick, likely trying to avoid it or mitigate the damage in some way. Diaz wobbled and Thomson pounced and the fight was over. Thomson got Knockout of the Night honors here. Yoel Romero also got Knockout of the Night honors for his flying knee knockout of Clifford Starks.
BAD: Benson Henderson and Gilbert Melendez go 5 lackluster rounds
I didn't much care for this fight. I think this fight is a prime example of why five round fights aren't always the great thing some think they are. Sure, we get some great moments, but we also get some duds like this fight. I understand that we can't do away with the five round concept, but I wish there was something we could do about making guys work harder in the early rounds.
I thought I was watching Lyoto Machida fight in the early rounds, as both guys were so tentative that there was very little action. There were a few spurts of offense followed by long stretches of basically nothing. It felt like the fight didn't even get started until the third or fourth round. My friends were so disappointed in this fight that two of them got up and left after the third round.
As for the scoring, I would have given Henderson the nod here as well. He seemed to do a little bit more, but it's not like he left no doubt. My one friend that stayed and watched the whole fight said that it would have been justice if Henderson had lost because the fight sucked and bad judging would have been appropriate for a bad fight.
UGLY: Daniel Cormier lays an egg
Coming into this fight I was convinced that Cormier would destroy Frank Mir. After all, Cormier was coming off of wins over Josh Barnett and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva and Mir is tied with Chael Sonnen for Most Overrated Fighter of All-Time. This should have been a destruction. Instead, we got a total garbage fight that damaged Cormier in the eyes of anyone watching. We all know what Mir is about, I can never forget that main event "fight" Mir had against Cro-Cop at UFC 119 that was as bad as it gets.
Cormier had said that after he beat Mir that he wanted to drop to light heavyweight and challenge Jon Jones for the UFC Light Heavyweight title. I said at the time that Cormier would look like a monster against Mir, but get destroyed by Jones. At least I was half-right. There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that Jones would crush Cormier like a tin can. Cormier couldn't do jack against Mir except hold him against the cage. If you can't do better against a overhyped guy like Mir, you have no chance in hell against the second-best fighter in the world.
This fight literally put one of my friends to sleep. It's obvious now that UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez is just being nice to a friend when he says he doesn't want to fight Cormier because Cain would absolutely destroy this guy. I don't know where Cormier goes from here, and quite frankly I don't care. He needs to redeem himself bigtime, though. The only entertainment to be had from this fight was watching these guys throw some ridiculous kicks. They got some really good height, I'll give them that. I was surprised either one could get their legs that high.
FACEPALM-INCUDING UGLY: The commercials for UFC 159
The commercials for UFC 159 give you the impression that Jon Jones is the underdog and that Chael Sonnen is this unstoppable badass. I grew up watching pro wrestling so I can appreciate the promo skill that Sonnen has and I can pick out the catch phrases that he has taken from various wrestlers such as the "Beat me if you can" line he got from Taz. I'm not sure if he left out the next part "Survive if I let you." on purpose or if the UFC just wouldn't allow him to use it, but it's a nice little gimmick he's got.
The major difference here, though, is that Sonnen doesn't have Vince McMahon backstage telling the other, more talented guy to lay down and lose. This isn't like the Undertaker at Wrestlemania or Triple H or Jeff Jarrett or any other guys throughout the years who held others down so they could look good. Chael Sonnen is going to have to get in that cage and look Jon Jones in the eye and know that he doesn't have a chance in hell of beating this guy.
That makes the decision to frame this fight the way they have all the more confusing. I've heard some people say that Jon Jones doesn't seem interested in hyping this fight. That's because he doesn't have to. Jones is like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers or any of the other bigtime quarterbacks. Sonnen is Blaine Gabbert. All the hype that Jon Jones needs to create for a fight is sign his name to the dotted line. He doesn't need to talk himself up because others will do that for him. Jones doesn't need to get into a war of words with Sonnen, he'll do all his talking inside the cage.
Out of all the people I've talked to about this fight, no one has given Sonnen a chance. The only ones who think Sonnen has a chance are those "Uncle Chael" people and they think he's going to win so they're obviously delusional.
I don't blame Chael Sonnen for doing this hype job, he's got to try to make as much money for himself as possible. I blame the UFC for pandering to him and allowing this stuff to make air. Sonnen and Dana White are good-time buddies for some reason and the UFC keeps giving this guy things he doesn't deserve.
Dana said a while back that Sonnen is a top-five draw for the UFC. That's an easily dismissible comment when you look at facts. Yeah, a fight against Anderson Silva is going to draw a good number. So's a fight against Jon Jones. You can't be considered a big draw if all your fights are against other big draws. Any Silva or Jones fight is going to draw good numbers, regardless of the opponent.
UFC on FOX 7 was a good card for a free card, but it also had a lot of bad things about it. It was a good card on paper, the big names on top just didn't deliver. Here's hoping that UFC on FOX 8 delivers better action from the guys on the top of the card.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/hydenstake/article_16552.shtml
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