Tag: Recap

Bellator 106 Recap: Alvarez Edges Chandler, Newton Picks Apart King Mo, Riggs Becomes The “Fight Master”


(Photo via Tracy Lee/CombatLifestyle.com)

Bellator should be thankful that this card never made it to PPV; the main event was incredible but paying $45 for the rest of the card would’ve turned people off to Bellator for life.

The night started off promising. Mike “The Marine” Richman met Akop Stepanyan and won via TKO in the first round. The match was well fought and exciting.

The same couldn’t be said for the next fight on the card: Joe Riggs vs. Mike Bronzoulis. The two men fought for the honor of being Bellator’s first “Fight Master” winner, a title as dubious as being the first XFL champion. Riggs won a wrestling-heavy decision that sedated the crowd and likely had television audience flipping channels.

Pat Curran vs. Daniel Straus, the first of three title fights on the card, followed Riggs-Bronzoulis. This fight didn’t wow viewers either. There were a few spurts of action — as well as a point-deduction for an illegal knee that essentially KO’d Straus in the third round — but it was a generally lackluster affair that saw Straus take Curran’s featherweight title and in doing so avenge his 2009 loss to Curran.

But Straus wasn’t the only fighter looking to avenge a loss at Bellator 106. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal sought victory over Emanuel Newton, who humiliated Lawal with a spinning backfist knockout back at Bellator 90. Lawal failed in this task.


(Photo via Tracy Lee/CombatLifestyle.com)

Bellator should be thankful that this card never made it to PPV; the main event was incredible but paying $45 for the rest of the card would’ve turned people off to Bellator for life.

The night started off promising. Mike “The Marine” Richman met Akop Stepanyan and won via TKO in the first round. The match was well fought and exciting.

The same couldn’t be said for the next fight on the card: Joe Riggs vs. Mike Bronzoulis. The two men fought for the honor of being Bellator’s first “Fight Master” winner, a title as dubious as being the first XFL champion. Riggs won a wrestling-heavy decision that sedated the crowd and likely had television audience flipping channels.

Pat Curran vs. Daniel Straus, the first of three title fights on the card, followed Riggs-Bronzoulis. This fight didn’t wow viewers either. There were a few spurts of action — as well as a point-deduction for an illegal knee that essentially KO’d Straus in the third round — but it was a generally lackluster affair that saw Straus take Curran’s featherweight title and in doing so avenge his 2009 loss to Curran.

But Straus wasn’t the only fighter looking to avenge a loss at Bellator 106. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal sought victory over Emanuel Newton, who humiliated Lawal with a spinning backfist knockout back at Bellator 90. Lawal failed in this task. He looked impressive with his takedowns and pressure early on, but faded fast, and began looking at the clock and taking deep breaths more than he was blocking punches. As the contest stumbled into the championship rounds, Newton gassed too. The latter half of the fight wasn’t Houston Alexander-Kimbo Slice bad but it was getting to that point. Newton won via unanimous decision and earned a shady, gimmick interim title. 

The main event saved the night. Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler attempted to rip one another apart for our entertainment (and for money, of course). Their fight rivaled Diego Sanchez-Gilbert Melendez in terms of excitement; it was equally action-packed but far more competitive. Chandler had the upper hand at some points, but it was Alvarez who was just a little quicker, landed a little more, and was a little more aware. The judges awarded Alvarez with a split-decision victory — to Bjorn Rebney’s apparent dismay — but the match took a lot out of both fighters.

The aftermath? Let’s just say Bellator really lucked out that this wasn’t put on PPV. The fights, on the whole, weren’t entertaining enough to warrant a price tag. Even worse, cherished “star” King Mo lost to a fighter many deemed beneath his level in Emanuel Newton for the second time. The positive fallout is that with an Alvarez victory, Bellator has at least one title fight to book that people actually want to see now: A rubber match between Alvarez and Chandler.

Here are the complete results for Bellator 106:

Main Card

Eddie Alvarez def. Michael Chandler via split decision (48-47, 47-48, 48-47)
Emanuel Newton def. Muhammed Lawal via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46)
Daniel Straus def Pat Curran via unanimous decision (49-45, 48-46, 48-46)
Joe Riggs def. Mike Bronzoulis via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Mike Richman def. Akop Stepanyan via TKO, 4:05 of round 1

Preliminary Card

Cristiano Souza def. Alejandro Garcia via submission (rear naked choke), 3:06 of round 3
Brandon Halsey def. Hector Ramirez via TKO, 0:52 of round 1
Mike Guymon def. Aaron Miller via submission (triangle choke), 4:20 of round 2
Cleber Luciano def. Joe Camacho via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Josh Smith def. Darren Smith via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

TUF 18 Episode 9 Results and Recap: Fight Scrapped, Semifinals Set

The ninth episode of TUF 18 was to feature the final fights of the men’s and women’s quarterfinals, with Cody Bollinger taking on Anthony Gutierrez and Peggy Morgan taking on Sarah Moras. Of course, we only got one of those bouts, as Bollinger failed to make weight, allowing Gutierrez a bye into the semifinals. As for the […]

The ninth episode of TUF 18 was to feature the final fights of the men’s and women’s quarterfinals, with Cody Bollinger taking on Anthony Gutierrez and Peggy Morgan taking on Sarah Moras. Of course, we only got one of those bouts, as Bollinger failed to make weight, allowing Gutierrez a bye into the semifinals. As for the […]

Related Posts:

‘TUF 18? Episode 9 Recap: The One With All the Coconut Water

(Sarah Moras vs. Peggy Morgan full fight video. Props: YouTube.com/TheUltimateFighterFX)

No, we didn’t skip an episode. Last week’s installment of TUF 18 was a mid-season recap/clip-show-thingy, and if you want to be a dick about it, you could say it was the least-watched episode in the history of the series. We didn’t watch it, you didn’t watch it, let’s move forward.

Last night’s episode began with Coach Miesha Tate showing up with some burgers for Michael Wootten and Josh Hill, as a reward for their not-terrible fight in episode 7. Meanwhile, Ronda Rousey angrily eats falafel balls alone in her car. Honestly, she’s such a pretty girl, she should smile more.

The last two quarterfinal matches are on the docket: Team Rousey’s Anthony Gutierrez vs. Team Tate’s Cody Bollinger, and Team Rousey’s Peggy Morgan vs. Team Tate’s Sarah Moras. Miesha feels good about the matchups, but Cody’s weight is a concern. He still has a lot of pounds to drop, and he eyes the burgers with longing and resentment.

Anthony has been watching TUF since season 5, when he was 15 years old. As you can imagine, the young gangster Nate Diaz made quite an impression on him. Being on the show himself is “completely unreal” to Anthony. Ronda describes him as “annoying and squirrely,” but in a good way.

Gutierrez’s weight-cutting routine involves sleeping while wrapped in multiple layers of blankets. Ugh, that looks terrible. I’m one of those “sleeps over the covers unless it’s freezing in the room” kind of guys. My wife is totally the opposite. She’s under the blanket even when it’s the middle of summer and the AC’s not working. Opposites attract, I guess. I don’t know. It’s something we’re discussing with out marriage counselor. Anyway, Anthony plans on rehydrating up to 155 pounds when this is all over.


(Sarah Moras vs. Peggy Morgan full fight video. Props: YouTube.com/TheUltimateFighterFX)

No, we didn’t skip an episode. Last week’s installment of TUF 18 was a mid-season recap/clip-show-thingy, and if you want to be a dick about it, you could say it was the least-watched episode in the history of the series. We didn’t watch it, you didn’t watch it, let’s move forward.

Last night’s episode began with Coach Miesha Tate showing up with some burgers for Michael Wootten and Josh Hill, as a reward for their not-terrible fight in episode 7. Meanwhile, Ronda Rousey angrily eats falafel balls alone in her car. Honestly, she’s such a pretty girl, she should smile more.

The last two quarterfinal matches are on the docket: Team Rousey’s Anthony Gutierrez vs. Team Tate’s Cody Bollinger, and Team Rousey’s Peggy Morgan vs. Team Tate’s Sarah Moras. Miesha feels good about the matchups, but Cody’s weight is a concern. He still has a lot of pounds to drop, and he eyes the burgers with longing and resentment.

Anthony has been watching TUF since season 5, when he was 15 years old. As you can imagine, the young gangster Nate Diaz made quite an impression on him. Being on the show himself is “completely unreal” to Anthony. Ronda describes him as “annoying and squirrely,” but in a good way.

Gutierrez’s weight-cutting routine involves sleeping while wrapped in multiple layers of blankets. Ugh, that looks terrible. I’m one of those “sleeps over the covers unless it’s freezing in the room” kind of guys. My wife is totally the opposite. She’s under the blanket even when it’s the middle of summer and the AC’s not working. Opposites attract, I guess. I don’t know. It’s something we’re discussing with out marriage counselor. Anyway, Anthony plans on rehydrating up to 155 pounds when this is all over.

Cody Bollinger is fading badly during the weight cut. The guy is painfully skinny as it is, and shedding all his water on the treadmill and in the sauna is breaking him mentally. Four hours before weigh-ins, Cody is still at 142 pounds. (Or, “141 and a half,” as Brian Caraway says, trying to stay positive.) But Cody has nothing left to give. He had just punished himself for the past two hours, and has made no progress on the scale. It’s a bridge too far.

Chris Holdsworth explains that all of Cody’s previous fights have been at 145 or higher, so doing the bantamweight season of TUF was sort of an ill-advised plan for him to begin with. Cody quits. Bryan and Miesha try to talk him off the ledge. “You’re not thinking clearly right now,” Miesha says. “You will hate yourself forever if you don’t try your hardest to make weight.” Miesha shows Cody a picture of his daughter, who is being held hostage somewhere, I guess. That is cold-blooded, Tate.

The two-headed being known as Mieshaway Caratate takes Cody back to the house and arranges a nice salt bath for him. Cody won’t even get in. “You’re just gonna give up like that?” Miesha asks, sounding like a disappointed mother. “You’re not even gonna try?”

“I can’t make weight,” Cody says. “It’s over. I’m sorry.”

He starts rehydrating. Coconut water, shit like that. Raquel Pennington tries a last-ditch effort to get him back in the game, urging him to try the salt bath. Amazingly, he does. But it’s too late. He already drank the coconut water.

And now it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the moment where UFC President Dana White shows up to the gym and publicly humiliates somebody for not being a real fucking fighter. Check out the video below:

Just like that, Team Tate’s #1 male pick is sent out the door. Bollinger is crushed that he blew his shot. Last night, Cody revealed on Twitter that he’s signed a contract with World Series of Fighting. Jesus. It breaks your heart to see something like that happen.

The good news for Anthony Gutierrez is that he might get a bye into the semifinals because of this. Though Dana thinks that Chris Beal deserves a second-chance to come back in as an alternate, the NSAC is concerned about Gutierrez (who spent all day cutting weight) having to cut weight again for a fight against Beal in the near future. So we’ll see.

Ronda is upset about how Miesha blah blah blah, you know what, it’s not even worth getting into.

Anthony is actually given the option of fighting an alternate or accepting the forfeit and moving on. Huh. So, do you do the smart thing and take a free pass to the next round, or do you cut weight again and take a quarterfinal match just to impress Dana? Luckily, Anthony is here to win this show, not to win respect points. He happily accepts the forfeit, arguing that it wouldn’t be fair to him to have to cut weight again a few days later.

‘Nuff bullshit, time for the women. Sarah Moras gives us the quote of the season: “I’m fighting Peggy Morgan. I think she’s very pale, and a ginger. Really tall, too, so she’s kind of like a giraffe.”

Moras’s origin story is the exact same as Gina Carano‘s, minus the old Thai man calling her fat. Basically, she just wanted to get in shape, her boyfriend was a fighter and took her to the gym one day, and she fell in love with it. Her game-plan is to take Peggy to the mat and pound her face in. She will break Peggy’s arm if the giraffe asks for it.

Peggy is a college professor who never planned to have a professional MMA career, but fell into one anyway. She says Sarah will be surprised at how hard she is to take down, and how hard she can hit.

Weigh-ins proceed without incident. After the face off, Sarah appears to drink coconut water out of an actual coconut.

Fight time. Peggy is seven inches taller, nine years older, and has a 4.5-inch reach advantage.

Round 1: Sarah takes the center of the cage and starts jabbing. Peggy fires back with long straights. Sarah moves in with a body kick and hook. Peggy works her own jab to good effect. Solid leg kick from Sarah. Sarah shoots to take Peggy down, but Peggy defends. Sarah pushes Peggy against the cage. Sarah is warned not to grab the fence. Sarah gets in a body kick, eats a jab in return. Sarah shoots in and drags Peggy down. Peggy tries to reverse it, but Sarah bulldogs her against the fence. Peggy is sitting against the cage, Sarah has her legs tied up with her own. Peggy holds Sarah in a headlock. Sarah breaks out of it, creates some distance and starts raining down elbows and punches. Peggy eats some nasty ones, and she’s cut. Sarah gets mount, and goes for a straight armbar. Peggy tries to defend, but Sarah straightens it out — hyper-extending the arm to a gnarly degree — and Peggy immediately taps, handing another win to Team Tate.

It’s time for the semi-finals matchups to be arranged, and each remaining fighter is asked who they want to go up against. You can watch that scene below. Unsurprisingly, all three of Team Tate’s women call out Jessica Rakoczy, the last female standing on Team Rousey. Also unsurprisingly, Jessica says she’ll fight anybody.

Chris Holdsworth says that he wants to fight Anthony Gutierrez next, because Anthony’s been eating his food, and that him vs. Davey Grant would make for a good finale fight. Davey and Anthony would happily fight any of the other men. Michael Wootten wants Anthony because he’s probably the easiest opponent.

Ronda wants to see Jessica vs. Sarah and Julianna vs. Raquel, and Miesha is agreeable to that. Dana is shocked.

As usual, the fighters’ and coaches’ preferences have absolutely no bearing on the semifinal matchups that are actually made. Seriously. This happens every season. Note to future TUF fighters: If Dana ever asks you who you want to fight next, tell him who you don’t want to fight.

The men’s semifinals will be: Chris Holdsworth vs. Michael Wootten and Davey Grant vs. Anthony Gutierrez.

The women’s semifinals will be: Sarah Moras vs. Julianna Pena and Jessica Rakoczy vs. Raquel Pennington.

Until next week…

— Ben Goldstein

Team Rousey Women
Shayna Baszler (eliminated by Julianna Pena in the quarterfinals, episode 2)
Jessamyn Duke (eliminated by Raquel Pennington in the quarterfinals, episode 6)
Peggy Morgan (eliminated by Sarah Moras in the quarterfinals, episode 9)
Jessica Rakoczy

Team Rousey Men
Chris Beal (eliminated by Chris Holdsworth in the quarterfinals, episode 3)
Davey Grant
Anthony Gutierrez
Michael Wootten

Team Tate Women
Julianna Pena
Sarah Moras
Raquel Pennington
Roxanne Modafferi (eliminated by Jessica Rakoczy in the quarterfinals, episode 4)

Team Tate Men
Cody Bollinger (removed from show after not making weight, episode 9)
Chris Holdsworth
Josh Hill (eliminated by Michael Wootten in the quarterfinals, episode 7)
Louis Fisette (eliminated by Davey Grant in the quarterfinals, episode 5)

WSOF 6 Recap: Almost All of the Guys You’ve Heard of Lost


(Jon Fitch grimaces at his first taste of New York weather / Via Getty)

Bellator is where the bad UFC castoffs go and, from what we’ve seen so far, World Series of Fighting is where the good UFC castoffs go—the ones who shouldn’t have been fired because they were legitimately talented or were in the UFC’s own top-10 rankings when they were let go.

But at WSOF 6, the tried and true formula of putting ex-UFC fighters with name value against fighters without Wikipedia pages failed. Nearly all the fighters that you’re reading this recap for lost.

Jacob Volkmann? He lost a unanimous decision to Pride vet Luiz Firmino. Maybe Volkmann’s head wasn’t in the game because Obamacare passed or something.

Miguel Torres lost too, sadly. The unheralded Pablo Alfonso dispatched the former WEC champ in the first round. He rocked Torres with punches which ultimately set up a guillotine choke finish at 3:05. Torres was once 37-1. Now he’s 40-7 and just lost decisively to a no-name (who’s record was 7-5 heading into the fight) on the prelims of a minor league show. Can it get much worse? Torres doesn’t have a comeback in him. And at age 32, the problem is both the years and the mileage. If Torres doesn’t retire, he might be in for a rough, Jens Pulver-like future.

Remember Joe Lauzon‘s younger brother Dan who was in the UFC back in 2006 at the young age of 18, losing to Spencer Fisher? Remember when he returned in 2010 and lost to both Cole Miller and Efrain Escudero. After the two failed stints in the UFC, Lauzon won five fights in a row on the regional scene. His luck didn’t continue at WSOF 6. The man with the hardest to pronounce last name in MMA, Justin Gaethje, cut Lauzon’s legs out from under him throughout the first round. In the second round, Lauzon was slow and immobile enough for Gaethje to capitalize on it with a right hook and an uppercut which put Lauzon’s lights out.

Find out what happened to Jon Fitch and Josh Burkman, as well as the complete results of the card after the jump.


(Jon Fitch grimaces at his first taste of New York weather / Via Getty)

Bellator is where the bad UFC castoffs go and, from what we’ve seen so far, World Series of Fighting is where the good UFC castoffs go—the ones who shouldn’t have been fired because they were legitimately talented or were in the UFC’s own top-10 rankings when they were let go.

But at WSOF 6, the tried and true formula of putting ex-UFC fighters with name value against fighters without Wikipedia pages failed. Nearly all the fighters that you’re reading this recap for lost.

Jacob Volkmann? He lost a unanimous decision to Pride vet Luiz Firmino. Maybe Volkmann’s head wasn’t in the game because Obamacare passed or something.

Miguel Torres lost too, sadly. The unheralded Pablo Alfonso dispatched the former WEC champ in the first round. He rocked Torres with punches which ultimately set up a guillotine choke finish at 3:05. Torres was once 37-1. Now he’s 40-7 and just lost decisively to a no-name (who’s record was 7-5 heading into the fight) on the prelims of a minor league show. Can it get much worse? Torres doesn’t have a comeback in him. And at age 32, the problem is both the years and the mileage. If Torres doesn’t retire, he might be in for a rough, Jens Pulver-like future.

Remember Joe Lauzon‘s younger brother Dan who was in the UFC back in 2006 at the young age of 18, losing to Spencer Fisher? Remember when he returned in 2010 and lost to both Cole Miller and Efrain Escudero. After the two failed stints in the UFC, Lauzon won five fights in a row on the regional scene. His luck didn’t continue at WSOF 6. The man with the hardest to pronounce last name in MMA, Justin Gaethje, cut Lauzon’s legs out from under him throughout the first round. In the second round, Lauzon was slow and immobile enough for Gaethje to capitalize on it with a right hook and an uppercut which put Lauzon’s lights out.

Jon Fitch was the only “mainstream” fighter on the card to win his fight, but his split decision victory was somewhat questionable (the fans booed it, for whatever that’s worth). Marcelo Alfaya—whose claim to MMA fame is getting knocked out by a young Jake Ellenberger at Bellator 11 in 2009—took Fitch down several times and even had Fitch’s back at one point. Fitch eventually landed some takedowns of his own and demonstrated some marginally improved striking, but he didn’t look great. In fact, he looked embarrassingly mediocre against a guy he should’ve destroyed. Fitch wrestle-f*cked Erick Silva yet had serious difficulties with a C-level fighter in Alfaya.  Based on this performance, you’d have never thought Fitch once fought for a world title.

In the main event, Josh Burkman fought Steve Carl for the WSOF welterweight championship. Burkman fought well enough in the first round, but faded in the second and third rounds, and was ultimately choked unconscious in the fourth.

It wasn’t a good night for the “established” fighters—the fighters that the WSOF brought in to get you to watch the show in the first place.

Here are the complete results, for the guys you were interested in reading about and the guys you’re just hearing about for the first time:

Main Card
Steve Carl def. Josh Burkman via Technical Submission (Triangle) Round 4, 1:02
Marlon Moraes def. Carson Beebe via KO (Punches) Round 1, 0:32
Jon Fitch def. Marcelo Alfaya via Split Decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
Justin Gaethje def. Dan Lauzon via KO (Punches) Round 2, 1:40

Preliminary Card
Pablo Alfonso def. Miguel Torres via Submission (Guillotine) Round 1, 3:05
Luiz Firmino def. Jacob Volkmann via Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Chad Robichaux def. Andrew Yates via Technical Submission (North-South Choke) Round 2, 4:09
Josh Rettinghouse def. Alexis Vila via Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Nick LoBosco def. Fabio Mello via KO (Head Kick and Punches) Round 1, 1 2:02
Alexandre Pimentel def. Jade Porter via Submission (Triangle Choke) Round 3, 3:05

Armchair Matchmaker: ‘UFC 166: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos III’ Edition


(Quick, someone call Wanderlei Silva‘s plastic surgeon! Photo via Reddit MMA)

Now that we’ve all come down from the meth-like high that UFC 166 provided, let’s get down to some business, shall we? Fans and pundits of the sport alike have previously hailed our armchair matchmakers as “The most sagacious, in-depth and intellectually gratifying reading experiences in all of mixed martial arts reporting,” so let’s hope we can work our magic for Saturday’s biggest winners. Besides, AMC FearFest starts soon and we will be checking out for the rest of this month once that gets underway.

Cain Velasquez: Well, according to Dana White during Saturday’s media scrum, Velasquez will be facing Fabricio Werdum next. Don’t be fooled by Werdum’s recent three-fight killing spree, though; Velasquez will have “Vai Cavalo” butt-flopping all over the mat inside of two rounds. That greedy sonofabitch.

Daniel Cormier: To hell with who Cormier should be matched up with next, I want to be matched up with Cormier’s kickboxing coach and learn the art of the turning side check kick, STAT. In all seriousness, we’d like to see the former Olympian matched up with fellow grappling stud Phil Davis next. Davis is fresh off a split decision over Lyoto Machida at UFC 163, and if Cormier is as insistent on cutting to LHW as he seems, Davis would make for a perfect litmus test.


(Quick, someone call Wanderlei Silva‘s plastic surgeon! Photo via Reddit MMA)

Now that we’ve all come down from the meth-like high that UFC 166 provided, let’s get down to some business, shall we? Fans and pundits of the sport alike have previously hailed our armchair matchmakers as “The most sagacious, in-depth and intellectually gratifying reading experiences in all of mixed martial arts reporting,” so let’s hope we can work our magic for Saturday’s biggest winners. Besides, AMC FearFest starts soon and we will be checking out for the rest of this month once that gets underway.

Cain Velasquez: Well, according to Dana White during Saturday’s media scrum, Velasquez will be facing Fabricio Werdum next. Don’t be fooled by Werdum’s recent three-fight killing spree, though; Velasquez will have “Vai Cavalo” butt-flopping all over the mat inside of two rounds. That greedy sonofabitch.

Daniel Cormier: To hell with who Cormier should be matched up with next, I want to be matched up with Cormier’s kickboxing coach and learn the art of the turning side check kick, STAT. In all seriousness, we’d like to see the former Olympian matched up with fellow grappling stud Phil Davis next. Davis is fresh off a split decision over Lyoto Machida at UFC 163, and if Cormier is as insistent on cutting to LHW as he seems, Davis would make for a perfect litmus test.

Gilbert Melendez: Either T.J. Grant or Khabib Nurmagomedov. Grant’s already injured his way out of a title shot, and with Josh Thomson taking on Anthony Pettis next, a fight between Melendez (who lost a razor-thin split decision to former champ Ben Henderson in his previous fight) and Grant would make for a sure-to-be slugfest that would help determine the true #1 contender in an already stacked division. Now that we’ve seen how Melendez deals with an extrovert-lunatic like Sanchez, it will be interesting to see how he handles an introverted, Ed Gein-esque lunatic like Grant. Because you just know that Grant has robbed a grave or two in his day. He’s got that look in his eyes.

Of course, now that Nurmagomedov is farmboy slamming top contenders like Pat Healy and calling for title shots in his post-fight interviews, a fight with the former Strikeforce champion could be the validating fight he’s been looking for. His name still doesn’t carry the kind of power that Melendez’s does, but a win over the Russian would solidify “El Nino’s” place as a future title challenger.

Gabriel Gonzaga: While watching UFC 166 at a particularly distressing Buffalo Wild Wings in Skokie, Illinois last weekend, I overheard a man known only as “Possum” refer to Gonzaga as “a real Jekyll and Hyde” fighter. It was perhaps the most astute fighter analysis I have ever heard. Thankfully, Gonzaga has been a lot more Hyde than Jekyll in his second UFC run, putting together four stoppage wins against just one defeat. With that in mind, we think the UFC should give Gonzaga another shot at glory against an upper-echelon heavyweight and see how he fares. Although Stipe Miocic is basically the only guy who fits the above criteria and doesn’t currently have a fight booked, we think the winner of the Frank Mir/Alistair Overeem fight would make for a better matchup. Our prediction: Pain. 

John Dodson: There are really only two options available for the hardest hitting flyweight in the division: You either give him the Lineker-Harris winner or the Jorgensen-McCall winner. Or you give him another title shot. Or you give him another UFC newbie to beat on and kill some time. OK, so there’s four options. But only two of them are sensible, so take your pick.

What do you think, Potato Nation? Do these matchups intrigue you in the slightest? And who would you like to see UFC 166′s losers face next?

–J. Jones

UFC 166 Highlight Videos: Velasquez Dominates Dos Santos, Nelson Pays the Troll Toll + The FOTY Frontrunner

(Velasquez vs. Dos Santos highlights, via the FOX Sports Youtube page.) 

To put it bluntly, UFC 166 was the kind of faith-restoring UFC event that effectively silenced even the most cynical of the sport’s detractors (henceforth known as “garbage-assers“). Featuring a trio of wars and a pair of brutal first round finishes on the main card alone, UFC 166 staked its claim as an early frontrunner for “Event of the Year” at this year’s Potato Awards and will likely achieve the same notoriety at awards ceremonies that actually transpire.

In the evening’s main event, Cain “El Emperador Finale” Velasquez selfishly opted to ruin the heavyweight division for the foreseeable future with a dominant fifth round TKO of former rival Junior Dos Santos. Elsewhere on the card, Roy Nelson was routed by another top 5 competitor in Daniel Cormier, Gilbert Melendez attempted to punch the crazy out of Diego Sanchez to little avail, and Gabriel Gonzaga reaffirmed that a man with a pedostache is not to be toyed with. Twas a momentous night, indeed.

Thankfully, FOX Sports has compiled some highlight videos of the evening’s greatest slugfests and made them available for viewing on their Youtube page. Although these snippets won’t fill the bottomless void created in the soul of, say, your friend Dave who insisted on skipping UFC 166 to attend a Lady Gaga concert with his bitch of a girlfriend, they will give you the chance to confirm that Dave is a tiny, tin-eared man who lacks intestinal fortitude and any semblance of deductive reasoning. Fucking Dave.

We’ve placed the highlight video for Velasquez/Dos Santos III above, but join us after the jump to relive the rest of what was truly a historic night for both the UFC and MMA in general.


(Velasquez vs. Dos Santos highlights, via the FOX Sports Youtube page.) 

To put it bluntly, UFC 166 was the kind of faith-restoring UFC event that effectively silenced even the most cynical of the sport’s detractors (henceforth known as “garbage-assers“). Featuring a trio of wars and a pair of brutal first round finishes on the main card alone, UFC 166 staked its claim as an early frontrunner for “Event of the Year” at this year’s Potato Awards and will likely achieve the same notoriety at awards ceremonies that actually transpire.

In the evening’s main event, Cain “El Emperador Finale” Velasquez selfishly opted to ruin the heavyweight division for the foreseeable future with a dominant fifth round TKO of former rival Junior Dos Santos. Elsewhere on the card, Roy Nelson was routed by another top 5 competitor in Daniel Cormier, Gilbert Melendez attempted to punch the crazy out of Diego Sanchez to little avail, and Gabriel Gonzaga reaffirmed that a man with a pedostache is not to be toyed with. Twas a momentous night, indeed.

Thankfully, FOX Sports has compiled some highlight videos of the evening’s greatest slugfests and made them available for viewing on their Youtube page. Although these snippets won’t fill the bottomless void created in the soul of, say, your friend Dave who insisted on skipping UFC 166 to attend a Lady Gaga concert with his bitch of a girlfriend, they will give you the chance to confirm that Dave is a tiny, tin-eared man who lacks intestinal fortitude and any semblance of deductive reasoning. Fucking Dave.

We’ve placed the highlight video for Velasquez/Dos Santos III above, but join us after the jump to relive the rest of what was truly a historic night for both the UFC and MMA in general.

Cormier vs. Nelson Highlights

Melendez vs. Sanchez Highlights

Gonzaga vs. Jordan Highlights

–J. Jones