If nothing else, fans were looking forward to UFC 152 for the simple fact that they’d be able to remove the awful taste that the cancellation of UFC 151 left in their mouths. Dana White and the rest of the UFC brass couldn’t have been happier to have moved on as well.
UFC 152 got off to a rocky start in the prelims with the controversial stoppage of Kyle Noke over Charlie Brenneman. This was followed up by two additional first-round stoppages.
Three decisions kicked off the fights shown on FX, but things didn’t start to get really interesting until Vinny Magalhaes made his triumphant return to the UFC with a second-round submission win over Igor Pokrajac.
Cub Swanson greeted the pay-per-view audience with an odd-looking knockout of Charles Oliveira. Then the action really plummeted when Matt Hamill and Roger Hollett took to the cage.
Hamill vs. Hollett was one of the worst fights I’ve ever seen. From a fan’s standpoint, a writer’s standpoint, a fan of Hamill’s standpoint. Whatever standpoint it was from, the fight flat-out stunk.
In fact, the thought of UFC 151 didn’t cross my mind all night until I saw these two lugs waltz around for 15 minutes.
Halfway through the fight, I had the notion to check out the UFC 151 card to remind myself of the fights we could have seen if Henderson didn’t pull out with a knee injury. The fact is, we weren’t missing much…at least on paper.
Instead of Hamill vs. Hollett, we would have been watching Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares. Granted, its hard to say how the fight could have gone between Hallman and Tavares, but I can guarantee it would have gone better than Hamill vs. Hollett.
Heck, watching two paper bags blow in the wind in a race to the end of the street would have been more entertaining.
After that fight painfully ended, we were left with good (not great) fights of Bisping/Stann, Johnson/Benavidez and Jones/Belfort. When it was all said and done, UFC 152 was an entertaining night as a whole.
I feel like the event did its job and put the cancellation of UFC 151 in the background and made it a distant memory for many.
Jones said some good things immediately following his fight, and it was apparent that the chorus of boos he was showered with upon entering the arena was turned into cheers as he exited.
The UFC 151 disaster was only going to be forgotten if Jones showed maturity and class following his fight with Belfort.
He showed both, and now the MMA community can press forward and let go of some resentment they may have had toward Jones, Dana, and whoever else was responsible for the cancellation of UFC 151.
Joe Chacon is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report and a staff writer for Operation Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.
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