Weekend Fights

Last weekend was a big one for MMA. If you’re not an MMA fan you’re really missing out.

On Saturday night was Affliction: Banned, and though this was Affliction’s debut event, it was the best heavyweight lineup ever seen on a single event. The UFC decided to try and offset Affliction’s viewership by putting on their own event at the exact same time. Meanwhile on Sunday was Dream’s Light Weight Grand Prix finale.

I thought I was going to have to wait to download the Affliction show, but fortunately my uncle Adam was interested in seeing Fedor and I rented the PPV from his place. Ironically this is the first PPV I’ve ever bought. Overall the card was solid, though I did feel that at times it was carried by the magnitude of the fighters and not necessarily the quality of the fights themselves. Many of the fights were slow and the fighters were tentative, especially Nogueira vs. Dewees, Lindland vs. Negao, and Sobral vs. Whitehead. (My aunt Regina thinks Mike Whitehead is hot, which is too funny.) Event though Barnett knocked out Rizzo, that fight wasn't all that exciting either. Things did pick up when Arlovski started to put a hurting on Rothwell. Nevertheless it was good to see Rothwell finally in the mix with some top caliber heavyweights.

In the main event we saw Fedor Emelianenko quickly smash and choke Tim Sylvia, who many, including myself, though might be able to fend him off with jabs for a while.

It's interesting that they could make a second event with almost the exact same roster, and just mix them up. If they did, these would be the matches I would want to see:
Fedor vs. Arlovski
Sylvia vs. Barnett
Rothwell vs. Buentello
Rizzo vs. Goodridge
Nogueira vs. Sobral
Lindland vs. Belfort

Once the Affliction card was over I ran across the street to catch the UFC replay and see everything that I hadn't seen except for when Affliction had the Megadeth intermissions. I tuned in time for Anthony Johnson and Kevin Burns, who were putting on quite a show. I thought how, with the exception of Fedor the Heavyweights seem so slow in comparison.

In an unbelievable injustice, Kevin Burns defeated Anthony Johnson by poking him in the eye. I don't understand how Burns was not DQ'd, or at least the fight declared a No Contest.

Then Cain Velasquez, a heavyweight, put a quick finish to Jake O'Brien, and Brandon Vera, now fighting at light heavyweight for the first time, defeated Reese Andy via snooze fest. So maybe I should hold off on generalizing about heavyweights being slow. Frankie Edgar and Hermes Franca had to be the best fight of the card. I was happy to see Edgar win. He's a talented, well rounded fighter, and I would hate to see him get caught with one of Franca's head down hay-makers.

The main event saw Anderson Silva demolish James Irvin with his first punch. The fight may have taken twice as long as Fedor/Sylvia, but if you take out the time spent circling, it was over much quicker.

That was it for Saturday night. A few more minutes to update MMA Ratings and I was done.

Then Sunday was Dream 5, the Lightweight Grand Prix from Japan. Little did I know that this was going to be the best card of the whole year with the best fight of the year so far. Shinya Aoki defeated Caol Uno as most people expected, but it was a good fight. Eddie Alvarez's battle with Tatsuya Kawajiri was amazing. The fight after that was a reserve bout between Joachim Hansen and Kultar Gill. As soon as I saw it I was thinking that either Shinya or Alvarez were not going to be able to continue and Joachim was going to win the tournament even though he lost to Eddie Alvarez earlier. Sure enough that's what happened. I certainly felt like in some way Alvarez was the winner as he beat Hansen and could have very likely did the same thing to Aoki that Hansen did.

Since then I hear a lot of people crying for a rematch between Aoki and Hansen, but what I want to see is Aoki vs. Alvarez.

All in all in was a great weekend to be an MMA fan!