TUF 13 Finale Results: Does Clay Guida Deserve a Shot at the UFC Lightweight Title?Bleacher Report’s Brian Goldsmith:Fan favorite, Clay Guida, defeated former WEC Lightweight champion, Anthony Showtime Pettis by unanimous decision tonight at UFC …
TUF 13 Finale Results: Does Clay Guida Deserve a Shot at the UFC Lightweight Title?
Bleacher Report’s Brian Goldsmith:
Fan favorite, Clay Guida, defeated former WEC Lightweight champion, Anthony Showtime Pettis by unanimous decision tonight at UFC Ultimate Finale. Pettis was guaranteed a title shot versus the Frankie Edgar – Gray Maynard winner. That fight went to a draw, so Pettis chose to fight Guida. In the meantime, the rematch between the champion, Edgar, and Maynard was postponed due to injury to both fighters. If Pettis won tonight, in any fashion, he would’ve certainly be granted a title shot.
Instead, Clay Guida won every round on his way to a unanimous decision victory, that, in all honesty, was not near as close as what most experts thought it would be. Guida dominated all three rounds with his wrestling. He did exactly what he wanted to do. He turned it in to an ugly, scrambling, wrestling match, and the former WEC Lightweight Champ did not have much of an answer for it. Pettis, who is extremely skilled off of his back, came close to catching Guida a couple of times, but just did not seem to match Guida’s intensity throughout the fight.
There is one word to describe Clay Guida’s style inside the Octagon: frenetic. Clay Guida used his frantic pace, constant movement and solid wrestling to stifle and confuse the last WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis. Guida was on the wi…
There is one word to describe Clay Guida’s style inside the Octagon: frenetic. Clay Guida used his frantic pace, constant movement and solid wrestling to stifle and confuse the last WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
Guida was on the winning side of a 30-27 unanimous decision over the Duke Roufus student Pettis this Saturday night in the co-main event of the The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 finale.
Pettis’ last fight in the WEC was a career-defining moment for the young athlete as he captured the lightweight title from Ben Henderson just before the promotion was folded into the UFC.
More important than the title perhaps was “The Kick” landed by Pettis in the fifth and final round of the fight with Henderson. He cage walked and exploded with a right kick to the head of Henderson that knocked the champion down and sent shock waves around the world launching him to mixed martial arts super stardom at just 24 years old.
Pettis’s performance in his last WEC fight was enough to get him the UFC lightweight title shot against the winner of the second battle between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.
Unfortunately for Pettis, Edgar and Maynard fought a battle that is definitely in the running for fight of the year, but ended in a draw.
The Edgar vs. Maynard rematch was set, but Pettis didn’t want to sit and wait on the side lines, so the UFC offered veteran Clay Guida as Pettis’ welcome into the Octagon.
Although there is a ton of hype behind Pettis and at 24 years old the sky is the limit for this young fighter, Guida is certainly no slouch and showed us why.
Of course Pettis is known for his spectacular kicks and an extremely active guard, but the one thing Guida exposed tonight was the young man’s take-down defence.
Guda was successful on five of eight take-down attempts and spent the majority of all three rounds in top control.
Although Pettis took Guida’s back late in the third round and used a very active guard to look for submissions throughout the fight, Guida’s wrestling and submission defense were too much for Pettis to overcome.
Fans were still privy to some nice kicks from Pettis, one from the bottom as he was trying to make space to get back to his feet and a 360 spinning back kick; unfortunately for him neither of them did very much to slow Guida down.
Of course this was Pettis’ first fight in the UFC and they always say the first one is the toughest one. At 24 years old, he has plenty of time to go back to the drawing board and make the necessary adjustments to get back on track.
What was most impressive in this fight was Guida and the continued improvement he has shown over his last four fights.
It wasn’t very long ago that many people were writing Guida off as a gatekeeper who could grind out some big wins, but would ultimately lose when the competition stepped up. This was evidenced in back-to-back losses to Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian.
Since then Guida has rattled off four straight victories including his win over Pettis. Three of his last four victories ended in submissions, one of them being a guillotine choke of former Pride champion Takanori Gomi.
Despite not looking like the most technically sound stand-up fighter, Guida makes up for it with his relentless pace and constant movement to keep his opponents off balance. As soon as Guida can get a hold of a leg, that’s where his grinding wrestler style shines through. Some may say grinders are boring, but at the pace Guida is going, that is a tough case to make.
Part of Guida’s evolution probably has a lot to do with being part of Greg Jackson’s camp as evidenced with almost every fighter that transitions to Jackson’s camp.
With a win over Pettis, the man touted to be the next lightweight contender and the four-fight win streak, Guida can’t be all that far out of title contention.
One would expect that with another solid victory over a top-ranked opponent such as Jim Miller or Ben Henderson that Guida will be fighting for the title.
No matter what the outcome for Guida in any fight, his motor is simply unmatched in the division and quite possibly all of the UFC. It will be interesting to see if that motor coupled with his strong wrestling can carry him and his long curly locks to UFC gold in 2011-2012.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates:
Yet another season of The Ultimate Figher (or TUF as it is commonly abbreviated) is in the books; Tony Ferguson proved too much for Ramsey Nijem and was thus awarded the title of “the ultimate fighter” for the 13th season.It is worth noting that winnin…
Yet another season of The Ultimate Figher (or TUF as it is commonly abbreviated) is in the books; Tony Ferguson proved too much for Ramsey Nijem and was thus awarded the title of “the ultimate fighter” for the 13th season.
It is worth noting that winning TUF has become such an unimportant accomplishment that there is no longer any pomp and circumstance about the awarding of the glass TUF plaque. It was unceremoniously handed to Ferguson by commentator Joe Rogan.
The decline of TUF has been a topic that has been covered ad nauseam by the MMA media and will not be further discussed here. Besides, there was a fight that had far more importance than the fight between Ferguson and Nijem.
What was that fight? Clay Guida vs. Anthony Pettis.
The fight between Guida and Pettis was important for two reasons.
First, it determined who would be a future contender at lightweight and who was more likely to get a title shot next.
Second, it showed the superiority of the fighters in the UFC over their WEC counterparts.
Both of these aspects of the fight’s consequences are important in their own way.
It is important that Clay Guida become a future contender because he is more well known than Anthony Pettis—despite Pettis’ landing of the “showtime kick” against Ben Henderson—and is a more charismatic figure.
Simply put, Guida has had more time with the UFC’s vaunted hype machine and is therefore more well known. This will generate more pay-per-view buys in any title or No. 1 contender bout, certainly more than Pettis would have.
The second reason for Guida’s victory being the most positive part of the event is, admittedly, an issue of ego for the UFC. Had Pettis beaten Guida, it would have been proven that a fighter outside of the UFC was better than one inside the UFC (even though both fighters were under the Zuffa umbrella).
This would have damaged the UFC product and many UFC critics and keyboard warriors would use this to their advantage.
However, this wasn’t the case. Instead, the former WEC lightweight champion couldn’t beat a man who many considered at one time to be a permanent gatekeeper in Clay Guida.
What will wee see Guida do next? Fight the winner of Jim Miller vs. Ben Henderson? Maybe fight for the lightweight crown?
Either way, Guida doing either of these things will generate more attention and dollars than Pettis would have. This was the single most important thing to come from an otherwise severely underwhelming event.
TUF 13 Finale Results: Tony Ferguson is The Ultimate FighterBleacher Report’s Nick Caron reports:The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 comes to a conclusion tonight with the welterweight finals featuring Ramsey Nijem vs. Tony Ferguson. Ferguson represents T…
TUF 13 Finale Results: Tony Ferguson is The Ultimate Fighter
Bleacher Report’s Nick Caron reports:
The Ultimate Fighter Season 13 comes to a conclusion tonight with the welterweight finals featuring Ramsey Nijem vs. Tony Ferguson. Ferguson represents Team Lesnar as their third pick while Nijem will represent Team dos Santos as their fourth pick.
Both men were dominant on the show and are worthy competitors fighting to become Season 13’s welterweight winner.
Round One:
Nijem starts off strong on the feet, but gets taken down by Ferguson. Ferguson works from Ramsey’s half-guard. Nijem trying to get to his feet, but eats some punches. He gets up. Ferguson winning the standup game as well. Nijem lands a flurry up punches though, before being taken down by Ferguson again. Ramsey is repeatedly landing his jab and keeping Ferguson at bay. Just as I say that, though, Ferguson lands a HUGE left hook that clocks Nijem and sends him to the canvas where he finishes the fight with another big right hand.
The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale: Clay Guida and 10 Fighters Who Would Benefit Most from Having 5-Round FightsBleacher Report’s Blake Dreisbach:It’s getting to the point where fights will need to go more than three rounds to determine a clear winner. Th…
The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale: Clay Guida and 10 Fighters Who Would Benefit Most from Having 5-Round Fights
Bleacher Report’s Blake Dreisbach:
It’s getting to the point where fights will need to go more than three rounds to determine a clear winner. There have been many recent instances where fans have wished a fight had been five rounds instead of three.
Not only would it result in more finishes, it would also be an intriguing challenge for each fighter to fight harder when the fight gets deep in the fourth and fifth rounds, and their are many who do this already but rarely get to show it because they aren’t fighting for a title.
These are 10 non-champions who would benefit most from five-round fights.
Kyle Kingsbury is a physical specimen to be sure, but—as is so often the case in MMA—lots of ripped muscles don’t always equal victory.Kingsbu starts the second round by moving the fight to the ground, but he can’t do much there as Maldonado scratc…
Kyle Kingsbury is a physical specimen to be sure, but—as is so often the case in MMA—lots of ripped muscles don’t always equal victory.
Kingsbu starts the second round by moving the fight to the ground, but he can’t do much there as Maldonado scratches his way to his feet. Once there, he eats a head kick from the American before going back to work on Kingsbury’s midsection.
Kyle keeps a hold of his Muay Thai plum and uses it to deliver more knees, some of which were blocked and some of which sneaked through the Brazilian’s defense. Once Kyle has kneed himself out for the moment, Fabio stings the body with more of those snapping body shots.
But Kingsbu is having a better round in the second as he kicks Maldonado’s leg out from underneath him. The action has slowed as both men look a little fatigue and blood starts flowing from Maldonado’s mouth/nose.
He still seems like the fresher fighter, however, and keeps blasting away at Kyle’s gut. The American has slowed waaay down, but scores with a body kick and a straight right as the final seconds tick off the clock. I’d call that 10-9 for Kyle Kingsbury.
