FanPost

Edgar vs Swanson: the aftermath

So... that happened last night. Kind of disappointing, to be honest. There were no really competitive or exciting fights on the card and even the ones that were fairly close on the scorecard were hard to watch. Well, as Billy Bob Thornton says in Bad Santa, they can't all be winners, kid.

Quick Hits

Some kid named Doo Ho Choi showed why he has a lot of KO and TKO acronyms on his Wikipedia page by dusting off Juan Manuel Puig, who looked like he got lost trying to find the Mexico City card. While only surviving 18 seconds here, and a whole 2:21 before he got knocked out in his UFC debut against Adriano Martins, he still has time to get knocked out at least twice more before a full round is over.

The next fight was, um, was...


Yeah, so, I kind of feel like I'm beginning to understand why she left Team Alpha Male. This was actually one of the better fights on the card. I don't normally go in for pillow fights on my UFC cards, but Paige VanZant is one feisty little Barbie Doll (literally, the girl is stick thin and has no backside). The clinch work did get a little repetitive by the third round, which led to a pillow-fisted stoppage. But it was fine since Kailin Curran really didn't have anything for VanZant.

The 12-year-old boy in me can't help but laugh at a dude named Akbarh Arreola, which is kind of like the name you'd give a terrorist's nipple. But he sure can fight. Dude dusted veteran Yves Edwards the fastest anyone has finished him since he was fighting KJ Noons for the Elite XC Lightweight championship in 2008. Part of me feels sad since I remember watching Edwards fight the big dogs at 155 back in the day, like Hermes Franca and Josh Thomson. I mean this was back when Lightweight was the midget weight class. But, time has moved on. Din Thomas and BJ Penn are retired and it might be time for Edwards to follow suit.

The next two fights were hard to watch. Two rangy and lanky guys with god-given reach advantages trying to get inside on smaller guys was stupid. I mean, James Vick might just have the most feints in UFC fight history. The kid only actually seemed to throw one out of a dozen twitchy, spazzie moves he would make. And when you're fighting a stubby German T-Rex you'd think the guy could have landed all day from range. As for Luke Barnatt, the man makes a hell of a troll statue. You'd scare the shit out of little kids if you had him stand outside your house. But a UFC fighter he does not appear to be. Oh and by the way, bra, you can't just do Mohammad Ali stutter steps and then come in flat flooted. That's not how it works.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't really pay attention to the heavyweight fight. Josh Copeland kind of looked like what Chris Farley would be if he'd tried to trane UFC, while Ruslan Magomedov is surprisingly nimble for a big ugly Russkie. Even though most heavyweight fights end within the distance, the Chechen fighter is one of the rare point fighters at this weight class, with 7 decisions in his 13 wins and just 4 knockouts. In fact, "Leopard" (lol) has five consecutive decisions and hasn't finished a guy since he was crushing cans in Moscow. Yes, including Tim Sylvia.

First off, I'm not an Isaac Vallie-Flagg fan. I don't consider him a "Maniac" just because he showed up once or twice here and I don't think he's been impressive in any of his previous UFC fights. Having said that, I have no fucking idea how Matt Wiman won that fight in the judges eyes. Matt Wiman fought a clinically braindead strategy by allowing himself to get controlled against the fence for more than half the fight, eating uppercuts and body shots ad nauseum. So, how the fuck did Wiman win all three rounds. The third round, maybe. I mean, IVF kept trying to take himself down by initiating the single leg against a guy with way better grappling. But the first two rounds seemed pretty cut-and-dried. And if you give Wiman the first two rounds for the takedown and backtakes, then what the fuck do you call the fence control? I wouldn't call it a robbery but far from looking handsome, Wiman fought an ugly, stupid fight and deserved to lose.

I'm not surprised TAM teammate Andy Richardson was giving Joseph Benavidez props for handling Dustin Ortiz last night. But colour me unimpressed. We all know Joe B is quick and has power in his punches, but I didn't see the domination that everybody else seems to have seen. What I did see was Ortiz bring the fight to Benavidez, who seemed to wilt as the fight progressed. I saw a guy who is clearly on the rise fighting a guy waning in his career. I saw a guy who would easily get smoked in a third attempt at Demetrious Johnson. Ortiz was definitely too slow for the quick hands of Joe B, but he's got a hell of a chin. I also feel like this was his first loss under Zuffa, since I scored a win in his fight over John Moraga.

I can't tell you how satisfying it was to see Jared Rosholt's corpse on the canvas in the first round of their fight. He's been a frustrating one-trick wrestling pony since making his UFC debut and it was getting tiresome. I especially enjoyed the fact that the ref didn't fall for the early spazzing against the fence and call a stoppage, giving Oleksiy Oliynyk the benefit of the doubt to come back and get the finish.

Well, I don't think anybody expected Chico Camus to come out and do Irish riverdancing against Brad Pickett. It was perhaps as big a shock as finding out that TJ Dillashaw doesn't suck. But I do feel like it's a style-change-in-progress. While Dillashaw seems to have smoothly transformed over night, Camus has a lot of work to do on his new-found technique. It worked at times, when he landed some beautiful shots, but at other times he almost seemed predictable and Pickett was catching him coming in. I was nice to see Camus get the nod, since Pickett has nowhere to go in this weight class while I'd like to see whether Camus can further develop this weird little hippity hop style he's picked up.

The Edson Barboza vs Bobby Green fight was every bit as traumatizing to watch as the Carlos Condit vs Nick Diaz fight. Don't get me wrong, although I felt Diaz beat Condit in the aforementioned abortion, Barboza clearly defeated Green everywhere this fight went. If Green spent less time brushing off his shoulder and more time putting a hurting on Barboza, it might have been a different result. A couple of tips for the talented Green. First off, you should have known you're not going to win a kickboxing fight with this fucking guy. Balls to the wall brawling might have taken Barboza off his game. Second, taunting a guy who doesn't speak English is kind of moronic. Third, don't throw your hands up when a guy runs away from you. Chase him down and beat him up. Having said all that, and while admitting Barboza won this fight easily, this was physically painful to endure as a fight fan. I'm not saying Barboza ran the whole fight but he sure did fucking backpedal more than the Tour de France.

What can I say about the main event that hasn't already been said? We were expecting a classic for the ages and instead we got 25 minutes of absolute Frankie Edgar clinic. He reminded me of classic GSP in there. And I don't mean the GSP who pitter pattered his way past his last few opponents. I mean the GSP who would destroy his opponents in the cage and take away every last piece of their dignity, like he did with Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, and BJ Penn (second fight). Edgar was an animal in the cage, using his wrestling to put it where Cub Swanson was helpless and then putting a savage beating on him. And know this: Cub tapped to pressure, not to a submission. He tapped to the serial abuse heaped on him by Edgar. He was completely and utterly broken. Very impressive.

I'm not sure where this leaves Frankie, especially with the loud-mouthed Irishman in the sidelines Chael Sonnening his way to a title fight. But I sure as hell look forward to seeing him again. This is a new Frankie Edgar, who finishes guys and does it in brutal fashion.

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