Contributor: Josh Hall
UFC 168 has come and gone, and I don’t know how long it will take for fans and MMA media alike to shake off the fallout from the ending to the main event between Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva. Aside from the tragic close to the card we saw a lot this evening to cheer for, so I will try not to dwell too long on the sadness we are all feeling right now, but there are a few points I feel compelled to address.
The rematch between UFC MW Champion Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva was supposed to provide some well needed closure after Anderson’s antics contributed to him being knocked out in their first fight. Sadly, it did everything but that, as the fight ended in the second round with Silva’s left shin shattering in sickening fashion after Weidman checked a leg kick. It was a terribly unsatisfying end to one of the biggest fights in UFC history, and likely the final time we ever see arguably the greatest fighter of all time compete in the Octagon. Hearing a god amongst men in the fighting game reduced to screaming in agony is something I will probably never forget as a fan, but I really wish I could.
One thing that I feel needs to be said here is this was not a fluke win as many people are claiming. A bizarre and unlikely ending for sure, but Weidman specifically trained that specific leg checking technique, known as the knee spike in preparation for this fight. It is very painful when done correctly, and reports are that he actually cracked the bone the first time he used the technique in the fight, which could explain the severity of the break when it happened for a second time. Weidman’s ability to adapt after the first fight should not be overlooked because of the odd ending to the second fight. That doesn’t happen if not for perfectly executed technique from the champion for which he deserves a lot of credit.
Something else that should not be overlooked is that Weidman was dominating Silva before the broken leg occurred, and Silva did not clown around even once. The champion was able to hurt Anderson on the feet very badly for the second fight, and Silva was very close to being finished with follow up ground and pound fairly early in the first round. Neither of the Silva/Weidman fights were much like your normal MMA fight, but there should not be much of a question that the better man won both fights. However…
Anderson Silva still might be the greatest fighter of all time, and if this is the last time he fights it absolutely should not diminish his legacy in any way. The Spider stayed at the very top of the game until his late 30s and his almost 7 year title reign is something we may never see equaled. Anderson has always been a one of a kind fighter, and rather than being sad (OK I’m still a little sad but I’m trying) I’m going to appreciate how lucky I am to have been a fan at the right time to be able to see all of the amazing things he did in real time. Thank you for all the memories Anderson.
Miesha Tate came to fight against Ronda Rousey, and she dragged the women’s BW Champion into far deeper water than she had ever been in before. Despite Tate putting on a game effort it is very clear that Rousey is just the better fighter, and that is not likely to change anytime soon, if ever. One reason for this is a frightening lack of any resemblance of logic in the gameplan of “Cupcake”. Tate had some success on the feet against Rousey (at least in comparison to the ground game) but her repeated attempts to shoot for takedowns were bafflingly nonsensical. Every time Miesha initiated a grappling sequence she got Judo’ed by the Olympic medalist, and it was beautiful to watch as someone who really loves throws in grappling. It took more than two rounds for the first time in her career, but in the end it is always death, taxes, and Rousey by armbar.
I would’ve personally liked to have seen Rousey accept Miesha’s extended hand after the fight, but I am not the least bit surprised she didn’t. It would have been a very mature thing to do, but Ronda can hold a grudge with the best of them. I was glad to see her give Miesha proper respect in her post fight interview, because she had certainly earned it. It will be very interesting to see if she continues to run with the “heel” persona in her next fight, because I would be really surprised to see her show anything but respect to her fellow Olympic medalist Sara McMann.
Travis Browne is a bad man, and I will not underestimate him again. No one does Josh Barnett like that, and HW’s everywhere should think twice before attempting a double leg on him with his back against the cage. He has picked up a Jon Jones like ability to use his very long limbs to create damage in ways other fighters simply cannot. This is a huge win for him that cements him as a legit top 5 HW.
It was great to see Jim Miller get back in the win column, but he did not look great on the feet against a fighter he appeared to be far better than. He made that irrelevant however when he finished off a beautiful armbar for the submission win over the BJJ black belt Fabricio Camoes.
I love Dustin Poirier. He could have turned down the Diego Brandao fight after the Brazilian stepped on the scale at 153, but instead he told him he was going to break him and he knew it, then and did exactly that. The body work from Poirier was nasty, and he completely overwhelmed Brandao with it in the last minute of the first round, leading to the TKO stoppage. Poirier still needs to tighten up his striking defense some, but that problem is in part masked by an excellent chin. Great win for “The Diamond” who continues to hang around the top 5 in a crowded FW division.
Chris Leben should never fight again. I like the guy, but he has absolutely nothing left in the tank at this point. Uriah Hall finally showed a willingness to hit someone again, but then spent his whole post fight interview profusely apologizing for hurting Leben. He is just not the killer Dana White wanted him to be. He doesn’t have that mentality. Also it was a quite disappointing thing for Leben to have to stop the fight himself after asking his corner if the fight was over. If a guy is that out of it, his corner should stop it immediately.
Gleison Tibau had Tate levels of bad gameplanning on this card as well, abandoning his grappling game in lieu of a striking battle, and it eventually led to his lights being put out by Michael Johnson. I still have no idea who Johnson really is as he goes from crazy levels of impressive to sloppy and out of synch from fight to fight for some reason.
Manny Gamburyan brought the fight to Dennis Siver every chance he got and was very competitive, but Siver just had a few too many skills for Manny to deal with. Siver fought a smart fight and convincingly won the final round in an even fight.
John Howard continued his unlikely resurgence in the UFC, surprisingly winning a mainly standup affair with one of the most dangerous strikers in the WW division. Howard won a convincing decision and also had one of the highlight reel moments on the card with his running Death Valley Driver-esque slam late in the second round.
William Macario has some crazy pinpoint accuracy on his striking, and he used that to conduct a blood drive with Bobby Voelker as the only donor necessary. Say what you want about Voleker’s struggles but that man takes a beating like a true professional. Voelker never stopped returning fire no matter how much he got hit and didn’t even want a moment to recover in the third round after getting poked in the eye. You have to respect that, though I know that isn’t much consolation for Voelker.
Estevan Payan looked like he had a good possibility to pull off the upset over a sluggish looking Robbie Peralta but that changed very quickly as soon as the third round started. Peralta’s corner told his he had to have a finish in the third round and he made it happen very quickly.
What a way to end 2013 for the UFC. You can feel the sport changing with the emergence of the UFC Fight Pass and the likely retirement of GSP and Anderson Silva. I don’t know where this will take us, but 2014 should be an interesting year.
-Josh can be reached at [email protected] or @jhall282.
Contributor: Ben Kohn
Wow, last night was an amazing night of fights that ended with a horrific leg break that honestly left a bad taste in my mouth. To see the man who had is easily the Middleweight GOAT and arguably the MMA GOAT go out like that just didn’t feel right. I wish Anderson a speedy recovery and hope there are no lingering effects from the injury. If Anderson retires, thank you for an amazing career and a highlight reel for the ages. Now it’s time to be all positive and shit so let’s move on to each fight/fighter and discuss things about them like gossiping 13 year olds.
Chris Weidman: Whelp, that’s a wrap. He’s not the Middleweight champion and has a whole division waiting to pounce on him to pry the belt away from him. A perfect knee check sent Anderson to the canvas and while hard to watch, Weidman has now beaten the former champ twice and dominated him for the most part in doing so. He’s already been matched up with Vitor so we know who he’s fighting next but the leadup to that fight will be hilarious because now Vitor will probably yell Anderson broke his leg on purpose to duck him. Congratulations to Chris Weidman all hail the new Middleweight king.
Anderson Silva: The horrific leg break is not the way the career of the GOAT should end but hopefully he doesn’t try anything foolish and come back to a crazy fight. If he retires, he will be a fine ambassador to the sport in Brazil. If he comes back, give him Bisping I guess for one last matrix fight ending.
Ronda Rousey: Well that was some loud booing for the UFC’s golden girl and that may not be a bad thing for the UFC of Ronda at all. The UFC needs to have a few champions who are heels to gain attention for the divisions and Ronda can use this to raise her popularity by having fans tune in to watch her lose. Performance wise, she definitely showed some improvement in her offensive striking, putting combos together and landing nice straight punches that hurt Miesha. She also showed she can take punches and move forward when she was rocked by Miesha a bit and by those upkicks too. Although she didn’t deserve SOTN, her fight was all kinds of exciting and now that she is matched up with Sara McMann (Hooray!!!!), the Olympian vs Olympian angle will be interesting to watch.
Miesha Tate: She has lost 3 of her last 4, 2 of those to the champion and been finished in all 3 of them. Not to mention she was badly hurt against Kedzie and would have lost without the submission. Tate is a tough girl but she really doesn’t have the skills to be a top 5 fighter anymore. She is a skilled grappler though and will give trouble to lots of women at Bantamweight though and she is way more popular now than she was before TUF 18. That’s about the only positive thing to say after last night though.
Travis Browne: Well Browne definitely made me eat some crow last night. A much improved Browne absolutely starched Barnett and did it in 1 minute which is incredibly impressive. Browne has earned a fight with Werdum for the number 1 contenders spot and that is going to be an interesting fight to say the least. Personally, I am finally aboard the Travis Browne hype train after last night. Earning the KOTN bonus is just icing on the cake for him.
Josh Barnett: So that didn’t go as planned I’d say. Barnett could have earned a title shot with a win and blew it big time. When you’ve seen what Browne does to guys on sloppy takedowns against the cage, you should probably avoid shooting sloppy takedowns against the cage. At age 36, his window for title contention could be closed for good as of now and the fact that it was a vicious KO doesn’t help his already slim chances. I would say match him up with the Miocic vs. Gonzaga loser. Either way you get a compelling matchup with either a prospect who will be in need of a big win or another of the old guard in which one of them will get a bounceback win.
Jim Miller: What a slick armbar! That was definitely the SOTN imo and Ronda only got it because Dana is in love with her or something. Miller is a tough out for every Lightweight and while he was fighting even with Camoes on the feet (which is worrisome), he beat him at his own game with an armbar he did not see coming. Great seeing him get back in the win column. Right now, everyone coming off a win in the top 10 is booked so maybe book him against Maynard in a rematch of an old fight?
Fabricio Camoes: First fight back in 539 days and you fight a top 10 guy when you are coming off a loss, losing by submission when you are known for your submission grappling, and it’s in the first round? Damn, rough night for Camoes. I think he gets another fight though, hopefully against someone more appropriate. Maybe match him with Tibau for a fun grappling match.
Dustin Poirier: Holy shit that was one hell of a beatdown. With all the stories swirling around the fight, the story for me is how offensively minded Poirier is and how damn good he is at that offense. The constant forward movement, combination punching, switching up areas of attack, and straight up violence make Poirier a nightmare for most guys in the division and he’s so young too and still improving with every fight. He needs to improve his defense a bit more but if he does, he could end up a champion one day. It’s hard to think of who to match him with because he’s already lost to Cub and Jung, Lamas is fighting Aldo, and Mendes is too high up right now and is likely being matched with Cub anyway I’d assume. I can see them putting him with Siver but I don’t like that matchup very much. They may put him with someone in the 15-20 area to get him a showcase fight and get another win under his belt though.
Diego Brandao: Coming in 8 pounds overweight (and ending up at 151.5), losing 25% of his purse, coming in injured from a car accident, and getting starched in the first round? Oh and apparently he threatened to cut Poirier’s throat before the weigh ins. C’mon son, that is just a really bad look for you and he really lost a ton of momentum after last night. There is really nothing good to say about anything that went down last night for him and that’s sad because he’s so talented and can be a real force. Who to match him up with after last night is tough because his stock really did fall harshly. I would think they will give him someone like Holloway if he beats Chope. Exciting striking matches are a favorite of the UFC.
Overall it was a really exciting night of fights that ended in a sad fashion but that does not diminish from the fact that this fight card was amazing and really delivered. I really hope they killed it in the buyrate because after losing GSP and now possibly Silva, Weidman needs to become a star and the more people who saw him win, the better for the UFC. Regardless of how people may view that, they need stars and Rousey and Weidman can be stars. Let’s see what the numbers are though before making any rash conclusions but hopefully 2014 is the year where new stars are born from the ashes of the old guard.
-Ben can be reached at [email protected] or @agentbenten.
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