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Read Part 1 of Franky's
report.
 After
being shoved to the other side of the arena, I decided not to go
back to my seat. I found a seat right next to aisle where the fighters
were walking down and decided to sit there until I was told not to.
Now, I haven’t
seen the event on television so I don’t really
know how the production came across, but from the start of the night
it didn’t seem like it was going to go well. Paul Buentello and
Gary Goodridge made their way to the ring. The fight was announced, then
nothing. The fighters stretched and bounced around the ring for about
10 minutes until it was announced that they were going backstage. This
did NOT go over well with the few people in the audience (which I don’t
understand, more on that later…). It was announced that the Athletic
Commission was doing some final checks and that the fight would still
happen.
Before I get to my
coverage of the fights I have to ask, if you have a ticket to a live
MMA event, why don’t you attend for ALL the
fights? If you support the sport enough to buy a ticket, support all
the fighters on the card. Show up for those on the under card and cheer
them on.
Back to the fights… I
didn’t really enjoy the Buentello vs.
Goodridge fight but for taking the fight on one day’s notice, all
the props in the world Big Daddy. Buentello seemed to lack any killer
instinct. There was more than one time where he should have finished
the fight but didn’t. If Aleksander were in this fight, Buentello
would have stood no chance.
After the first fight,
we once again ran into production issues. Mark Hominick vs. Savant
Young was announced as coming up next. After about
15 minutes of waiting, the marquee now read “Belfort vs. Martin
at 5:20.”
It appears that at
middleweight, The Phenom is back! Vitor looked great. Martin put up
a good fight, but Belfort’s knee and a beautiful
punch ala Anderson Silva gave us our first knock out of the night.
At this point I was
sent back to my seat as the PPV portion of the show was about to start.
Things kicked off
with Megadeth performing a song. I don’t really
like that type of music, but it was pretty cool to have the fighters
walk down and line up on the aisle.
The first fight was
Mike Pyle vs. JJ Ambrose. Pyle’s vast experience
over his opponent showed. Not really much to say about this fight.
Next was Nogueira
vs Dewees. In Little Nog’s corner was his twin
brother, UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion Rodrigo Nogueira. That means
in the building is both UFC champions and a total of 5 fighters that
have at some point held the UFC heavyweight title! Nogueira looked great.
I don’t understand why he is not in the UFC. Promotion of him would
be so easy considering his TWIN BROTHER is the heavyweight champion.
The next bit of propaganda,
I mean fight, was all about Matt Lindland. Really, I think the only
reason that this fight is on the card is to
promote Lindland’s run for the state legislature in Oregon and
for him to make some extra money for his run. One thing I learned from
this fight is that Matt Lindland would stand no chance at Anderson
Silva. Fabio Negao gave him almost all he could handle.
Mike Whitehead needs
to leave the Muay Thai shorts at home. If he was going to wear them,
I wished he would have at least shown some Muay
Thai. Neither Babalu or Whitehead were very aggressive. This fight
did show a downside to the ring though as Whitehead attempted multiple
times to take Babalu down and ended up pushing the fight through the
ropes causing a reset of the fight just as Babalu almost caught a guillotine
choke. Not a great performance from either fighter, but a win for Babalu
nonetheless.
Due to not being
able to figure out the timing and production of the fights, Hominick
vs. Young was pushed to this spot. I really enjoyed
this fight. Before the fights, as I said in part 1, I was listening
to a group of referees talking. I didn’t mention that Larry Landless
was there as well. Anyway, Landless was discussing a fight that he
refereed between Young who is 5’6 and Kendall Grove who is 6’5.
He said it was one of his favorite moments to look down to Young and
ask “are you ready?” then turn to Grove and look up and
ask the same question.
I really want to
continue, but the next three fights really deserve their own part.
Check back in a day or two and see my thoughts on the final
3 fights! Read about the Main Event |
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