Ultimate Fight Night
Really good show, I thought. It felt more focused on fighting than commercials or other Spike programming, which was a refreshing change. I was worried about the decision to put Koscheck first (hell, I outright thought it was a bad idea), but it obviously worked out well. Koscheck is a victim of sorts from the reality show, as it gave him a national audience before he was a complete fighter, and people think of him as more one dimensional than they ever thought a guy like Matt Hughes, because the latter had much more training and experience before he was exposed to the masses. Dean Lister was ridiculously overrated going into his fight, and all his weaknesses were exposed again for those who have seen him outside his one UFC fight with Alessio Sakara. The guy's got world class submissions, but questionable wrestling, standup and stamina. And he very well might be 0-2 in UFC had his two opponents not willingly dropped down into his guard for no apparent reason. Chris Leben rebounded, although his back tattoo looks awful. And the main event was really good. This was easily Diego's most impressive performance to me. He's been more dominant before, but I've always viewed him as a guy that was only comfortable on top of his opponent with a position where he wasn't vulnerable to submissions. In other words, he sprinted towards a position where there was no danger of the other guy's game. To me, that reflected a real one dimensional aspect to his game, because you can't always impose your game on the other guy and you have to be training in other things. Well, this time he did exactly that. He stood with Karo. He worked from the bottom. He scrambled. He showed a lot of guts and courage even when it looked like Karo was taking over. I gave the fight to Diego 29-28, and I was hoping Karo would win. I still don't like Diego all that much because he comes across as an arrogant weirdo, but I have to give him his credit. Well, I don't have to, but I will.
posted by Todd Martin at 11:05 AM
1 Comments:
I can't complain with the outcome of the fight as Sanchez was the better fighter but I sure as hell can complain about the decision and specifically the UFC guidelines for scoring.
I posted this before here but 10-10 rounds have to become a reality in UFC (and in other combat sports). If reasonable people (so not you Abe Belardo) can differ on who wins a round, it ought be 10-10. The fact that the razor-thin second round and Diego's dominating third round each earned a 10-9 score is a joke and completely illogical. Not to vere off topic here, but this a major problem in all of American sport. The other night, there were two 18-inning baseball games which of course became mockeries in the extra innings with pitchers batting, starters relieving, rosters screwed up for days, and most importantly fans leaving in droves before the end. Why not call it a tie after 12, 13 or 14 innings? It's certainly a fair result and spares us from the lunacy mentioned above. I don't understand the "a winner at all costs" attitude in American sports.
On another note, how clueless was Mike Goldberg last night? Proclaiming Sanchez the winner as the clock expired was absurd as many had Parisyan actually ahead.
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