Midnight Mania! ‘It’s Pretty Clear I Won’

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Over the weekend at UFC Vegas 21, Matheus Nicolau and Manel Kape battled to a close decision. Nicolau started well, using his wrestling to control the opening frame. Kape battled back in the second, however, putting together combinations and bullying his opponent around the Octagon.

It all came down to the final round, which two of the three judges awarded to Nicolau as Kape stood in disbelief. All 22 media outlets listed on MMADecisions.com scored the fight for the former RIZIN champion. Nicolau, however, has re-watched the fight multiple times and believes he earned the victory.

“The third round, if you watch it, I beat him for four minutes and he landed two good knees in the end of the round, and I took them well, and then I landed a spinning elbow,” Nicolau told MMAFighting. “Watching the third round all five times, it’s pretty clear I won, man. He wasn’t landing anything, I was landing, in and out, scoring well and hurting him. I kicked his leg and he went down, I landed several punches to the body, many crosses to the head.”

Specifically, Nicolau blames Daniel Cormier for the controversy, pointing out that Cormier and Kape are team mates.

“‘DC’ is from his team, and it seemed cleared to me that he was kind of in his favor, rooting for him,” Nicolau said. “Man, I beat him for four minutes, they said that during the commentary, ‘Matheus is landing, he came better in round three,’ and then, with a minute left, they start saying the fight is wide open. It makes no sense based on their own commentary, I think it was a little contradictory.”

Beyond this individual decision, this is another example of Cormier getting some flack for his commentary. Notably, Cormier is still under fire for his supposed bias for Israel Adesanya in his title bout vs. Jan Blachowicz.

Not that Blachowicz cares!

Insomnia

Marcelo Rojo deserved half of a “Fight Of The Night” bonus for his part in his back-and-forth war with Charles Jourdain.

All the post-practice banter is a true highlight of training MMA.

Aljamain Sterling sounds on board with the Petr Yan rematch, which is best for all parties.

Speaking of illegal knees, Eryk Anders came through with the correct response to his “No Contest.”

Darren Till has the solution to our eye poke problem.

Holding pads is not for the faint of heart.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

RIP to the legend “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler — an all-time great!

Sometimes, standing right back up after being knocked down is not the best course of action.

This is a video game-esque combination. Prior to the spin though, great demonstration of the right hook and left kick!

Random Land

Various methods of problem solving:

Midnight Music: I dug the vibe of this Foxygen track that popped up on my Discovery Weekly playlist.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.