The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) held their monthly pay-per-view this past weekend. The event had some huge hype as top middleweight Anderson Silva made the jump to light heavyweight to fight former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin, and B.J. Penn returned to the lightweight division to take on top contender Kenny Florian.
There were some “average” ppv’s before leading up to the grand daddy of them all UFC 100 in June, and I thought it was important to start putting together a string of solid pay-per-views. Apparently, not everyone got the memo.
The night started out with a lightweight bout between Kurt Pellegrino and Josh Neer, with Pellegrino controlling the fight on the ground, but doing absolutely no damage at all. In fact, after the fight, after he sat on top of Josh Neer for 15 minutes, he came out in worse condition. Pellegrino got about 2 to 3 minutes of medical attention to his face while Neer stood still in the middle of the Octagon awaiting the decision. Both were good submission specialists, with Neer having the advantage standing up, he just unfortunately couldn’t escape Pellegrino’s takedowns. Although he got the win, Dana White needs to get rid of this guy, he’s boring. Pellegrino will never be a top lightweight, he has lost to Nate Diaz as well as Joe Stevenson, and there isn’t a star studden future ahead for Pellegrino. It was a tough loss for Neer to take, especially after submitting TUF winner Mac Danzig, but he will be back.
Another snoozer followed the Pellegrino-Neer fight, Ricardo Almeida met TUF winner Kendall Grove at middleweight. Grove’s career was in jeopardy after he lost two straight to Patrick Cote and Jorge Rivera. Grove is a very exciting fighter, before his fight against Almedia, three of his last four fights ended by knockout. Similar to Neer, Grove had the advantage standing up but couldn’t escape Almeida’s takedowns. Almeida is a world class grappler and controlled the fight on the ground to get the nod in the judges eye’s. I feel the same way about Almeida than I do about Pellegrino, another boring fighter. Almeida is 3-1 in the UFC, with two of his three wins by decision. I’m not knocking fights that go the distance, some of the UFC’s top fights are three round war’s, but Almeida can’t deliver that aspect.
TUF winner Amir Sadollah made his UFC return on this card. Sadollah won The Ultimate Fighter Season 7 fourteen months ago and hasn’t got back into the octagon because of so many injuries. . Sadollah had 14 months off to make his return for 30 seconds. Sadollah threw a high leg kick that Hendricks blocked and followed with a uppercut that caught Sadollah and dropped him to the canvas. Hendricks swarmed him with punches and referee Dan Miragliotta stopped the fight. The stoppage was controversial as it looked as if Sadollah was coming to life. However, during the onslaught by Hendricks, Sadollah’s body went limp, he wasn’t defending himself, and im my opinion Miragliotta made the right call. His job is to protect the fighters, Sadollah was on his hands and knee’s taking continous shots and he wasn’t intelligently defending himself. When he stood up, he still looked a bit glossy eyed and he asked Miragliotta what happened, meaning he was out. Miragliotta made the correct call in my opinion.
Co-Main Event
Anderson Silva made his return to light heavyweight to face Forrest Griffin. Griffin came charging into the octagon and held in there for about 3 and a half minutes. Anderson Silva, arguably the best pount-for-pound fighter in the world had two previous lackluster middleweight title defenses, and came back into form showing his knockout power. After a couple of exchanges, Silva knocked Griffin down with a right hook, but Griffin managed to regain his composure momentarily. Another shot sent Forrest to the canvas, and afterwards, Silva toyed with him. He put his hands on his hips and dodged Griffin’s punches by simply leaning backwards and while leaning and moving backwards he sent a jab at Forrest that sent him down for a third time. Forrest signalled that he didn’t want to continue the fight, and afterwards sprinted back out of the octagon. Griffin was immediately rushed to the local hospital because of a rumoured dislocated jaw and deafness in one ear.
Main Event
Simply, didn’t live up to the hype. I don’t know what Kenny Florian’s gameplan was, but it must not have been what occured. Kenny leaned on B.J. Penn against the cage and took continuous combinations while trying to escape. Florian held in there until the fourth round, where Penn took him to the ground and used some incredible ju-jitsu to finish the fight by Rear Naked Choke. Rumoured to be up next for Penn, is the explosive Diego Sanchez. I for one, am not a fan of Penn, and I’m praying every night that when they meet, Sanchez beats the crap out of him. Unfortunately for Florian, I’m not quite sure what’s next. Florian already holds wins over Joe Stevenson and Roger Huerta, who are two of the top lightweights. Perhaps after Florian strings together another win streak he can get a rematch against Penn, or a title shot against Sanchez.
UFC 102 is up next August 29th at the Rose Garden in Portland Oregon that features Randy Couture against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria.
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