This was a slept on UFC by far.. Great fights, lots of surprises and a few stunning upsets..
To lead things off I want to talk about the Chris Leben and Jake Rosholt fight, this was a great fight and really caught me off guard to see how much Jake's stand up has improved. Chris Leben is a monster to stand up with especially being a South Paw makes things that much more awkward to prepare for or even find fighters to bring in with a similar style, I was very impressed with the progress he has made. But in this fight Jake's Division 1 NCAA Wrestling pedigree came to the forefront and set up his submission attempts, he was pressing a arm triangle and missed it once towards the end of the fight then sunk it right back in and put Chris to sleep in closing moments of the fight. I respect both fighters styles and was really impressed with how much Rosholt has improved and how hard Leben has bounced back after the suspension, but Jake showed that NCAA Wrestling and savage submissions makes for problems with any stand up fighter. Now pair this with his improving standup he will be a strong gate keeper in the division but I think he needs to go down to 170 to really make some noise.
Rosholt with the locked in Arm Triangle.
The next fight on my agenda is Nate Marquardt and Demian Maia, this fight had a bunch of hype rolling into it mainly because of Maia's supernatural MMA BJJ, coming into this fight he had 4 submission of the night awards and was working on a 5th until Nate the Great's straight right hand 21 seconds into the fight. Demian was trying to engage in the striking to setup his Jiu-Jitsu, it was a very bad choice due to Nate's amazing striking ability. Demian threw a head kick trying to get Nate to return the kick to setup a takedown but Nate did not bite then saw the same kick coming again from a mile away, 10 seconds later Maia woke up on the mat wondering what happened.
Maia waking up in the Octagon..
Next up, Keith Jardine and Thiago Silva was exactly what I predicted. Keith has a very wide open style that is real reckless at some points but very effective in most. As quickly as they came to the center of the cage Keith was laying down on the mat in a daze hearing the roar of the crowd in Portland and a screaming Brazilian yelling "PARTE TRASEIRA!!" translated into english would be "IM BAACK!!" and Keith Jardine was the first to feel the wrath, Thiago is a monster and his only loss is to one of the most savage pound for pound fighters on the globe Lyoto Machida.
He was already one of my favorite fighters, this put him in my top 10 of all time...
Next up is the main event, I have wanted to see this fight for around 5 years and it beyond lived up to the hype, Minotauro wanted to bounce back real hard after the Mir fight. Nogueira showed why he is one of the true legends of this amazing sport, showing fluid combinations with his hands and his trademark Jiu-Jitsu was on point, as much as people want to consider Maia the second coming of BJJ in MMA I still feel that he has to put in more time to put him on top of Nogueira as the top MMA submission artists that truly translate there Jiu-Jitsu into the fight game, he had Randy mounted and almost put him to sleep with a alligator roll which blew my mind considering Randy's legendary wrestling and submission defense. I want to see Nogueira vs Mir 2, Nogueira needs to show Mir that his striking had not improved leaps and bounds but Nogueria's staph infection was just that intense..
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