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UFC Hidalgo: Report Card

Dustin Poirier D, Michael Johnson A

It kind of sucks to be a Dustin Poirier fan (if such a person exists). Every time the kid goes on a winning streak it always ends in some brutal fashion. It's not like he lost a close split decision, or was competitive through a few rounds. He got his shit pushed in the same rapid fashion as he did against Conor McGregor. I mean, it did look on the replay like when he got dropped he might have recovered given some time, but the stoppage wasn't some egregiously incompetent Herb Dean special. It was fairly legitimate.

What I didn't like was the fact that after Johnson got the stoppage he came to stand over Poirier presumably with the intention of pissing on his corpse. I'm not sure why he wasn't satisfied with the quick TKO win and felt he needed to further rub his sweaty sack in Dustin's face but it was as classless as a Nick Diaz snapchat. I mean, this is a guy who got choked out by ladies handbag thief Reza fucking Madadi. It might be a good idea to show some humility, bro.

As for Dustin, we barely had time to listen to commentary about how complete a fighter he is when he got popped and dropped and stopped. What happened to that complete fight game? Did he think outboxing Irish Joe Duffy made him Conor McGregor? Poirier went 6 for 12 on strikes while attempting no takedowns of any kind. Meanwhile he endured nearly twice as many strikes in the short time frame he was vertically inclined, with several warning shots across the bow before his ship was sunk. Did he not think to mix shit up? Dustin has six submission wins on his record while Johnson has six submission losses. We're not splitting the atom here, people.

Anyway, Johnson is an interesting fighter "in the mix" at 155, but he's been inconsistent. Yes, he was robbed against Beneil Dariush, but he didn't look particularly spectacular in that fight. And against a tank like Nate Diaz he looked completely ineffective beyond the midpoint of the second round. But whatever. If there's anything I've learned in the past two years other than how useless a degree in journalism is, it's that MMA Math means anybody can win on any given Sunday. I mean, for fuck sakes, senior citizen Dan Henderson might KO Michael Bisping to become a champion and the dude is 3-6 in his last 9.

Derek Brunson A+, Uriah Hall F, Herb Dean Z

How many times have we heard this before? Uriah Hall has got past his mental blockage, had a great camp, and is ready to really live up to his full potential? Please. Hall's fullest potential was realized years ago when he became a highlight finish for Chris Weidman, a fighter with some actual promise. All Hall's done in his UFC career is pick alternate dates to shit the bed, then blame MMA writers for pointing out how fucking terribly inconsistent he is.

To be fair, Derek Brunson has looked fantastic in recent fights, with four consecutive KOs over legitimate fighters, and striking skills that are on par with some of the best in the UFC. Four straight first round finishes should be enough to convince anybody that dude is a legit top middleweight at this point, despite coming up short a few years back when he was tested against Ronaldo Souza and Yoel Romero.

The only sad thing is that Brunson's victory was tainted by the stench of Herb Dean's clusterfucking failure as a referee. Anybody who knows me realizes I consider Dean's reffing to be by far the worst in the promotion. He's inconsistent, incoherent, incompetent. He stops a fight that shouldn't have been stopped in this one, yet in a previous fight he actually needed to be woken out of his stupor by a fighter who informed him his opponent was so unconscious he was literally going toward the light to meet his ancestors. He is a dangerously fucking stupid man and I wouldn't trust him to referee a dog taking a dump.

Evan Dunham A, Rick Glenn C+

I'm not sure what made this fight of the night other than Glenn's chin. I mean, it was basically one guy getting absolutely fucking destroyed by another guy for three rounds, with both so low on gas in the third round you'd think they were trying to downclimb after summitting Everest. Rick Glenn in particular looked knocked out on his feet in the latter part of the fight, throwing punches that were so weak Roxanne Modafferi would have been proud.

Look, it was a fun fight to watch. The Just Bleed mimbo in me was happy to see two guys brawl it out, and I was hoping Glenn would survive to the finish. But at a certain point I realized I was beginning to wince every time I saw Rick try and lift his cement heavy arms to offer a sloppy, winging punch because I knew he would receive five or six in retaliation.

This was no fight of the night since it wasn't remotely competitive. Glenn was fighting on short notice, up a weight class, coming from a minor league organization (shut the fuck up JayWolf). The real fight of the night happened earlier in the evening when José Alberto Quiñonez and Joey Gomez traded knockdowns and scrambles in easily one of the most entertaining fights I've ever seen at 135 pounds. But, you know, UFC gonna UFC. Gotta promote the FOX Sports main card, right?

Roan Carneiro C-, Kenny Robertson F

What a terrible fucking fight. Agonizing to endure. I was impressed with only two things in this fight. First, that Kenny Robertson can get away with being that tough while looking like a flabbier version of Karl Pilkington. Second, that he was fairly equal to the grappling of Roan Carneiro, a third degree BJJ black belt. His butterfly sweeps were very nice.

Still, Robertson was horrible on the feet. Horrible. If you're going to walk forward like a zombie and eat shots you can at least follow the Diaz Bros. routine of landing a five punch combination once you get inside. Kenny did little but eat shots and throw what were some of the wimpiest, most pathetic strikes I've ever witnessed. Did you see that his "jab" was actually a pawing swinging motion of the back part of his glove? It's the kind of motion you'd do if you wanted to touch gloves before a fight.

As for Carneiro, he got the win but he looked about as exciting a prospect at 170 pounds as BJ Penn's last foray into featherweight (shudder, BJ is going to get fucking decapitated in the Philippines and I don't mean by the Muslim terrorists). He might beat a fellow grappler but anybody with any hands will leave him stiff on the mat.

Islam Makhachev B, Chris Wade C+

I've not sure what genius on Team Wade decided to grapple with Khabib Nurmagomedov's combat sambo buddy, but they're what the 18th Century would consider a good candidate for lobotomy. As a Dagestani crazy Russian Muslim, Islam Makhachev is no wimp on the feet, but Adriano Martins proved fairly conclusively that his technique is seriously lacking. Wade's best hope of winning in this one was, to quote cokehead Mike Goldberg, use Chuck Liddell's wrestling in reverse strategy to keep the fight standing.

Sadly, Wade decided to don his best Team America Fuck Yeah hat, and wrassle with a four-time Combat Sambo Russian National champion. Dumbfuckitude at its finest. After a slow start in the first round, Makhachev put on a display of high level wrestling control in the second and third, completely shutting down Wade, who insisted on testing the Russian's credentials.

But this fight wasn't a good showing for either party. Makhachev showed a reluctance to strike, even from dominant ground positions, relying instead on his training to ride out the latter rounds and get the Dubya. There's nothing to get excited about for Islam, who showed zero ground and pound skills, other than an appreciation for his lifetime training in the overlooked and underappreciated martial art of Sambo.

Chas Skelly A+, Maximo Blanco F

I think we've already covered off the incompetence of a certain dumbfuck referee so let's get straight to the fight. The thing about being unpredictable is that if your unpredictability follows a pattern it becomes predictable. In other words, since Maximo Blanco basically comes out in every round in every fight with a flying knee or kick, it's easy to train for it.

Chas Skelly turned Blanco's predictable run forward jump against him, beating him the center of the cage and landing his own flying kick. Blanco went ass over tea kettle, lost the scramble and got quickly choked the fuck out. It was a thing of beauty and nothing more really needs to be said about it. Skelly absolutely deserved that extra 50 large.

QUICK HITS FROM THE UNDERSCRUB CARD

  • Gabriel Benetiz (A) looked really solid in battering Sam Sicilia (C-) with punishing leg kicks and avoiding the brawl, which is Sam's only real weapon. Benetiz is a little more hittable while moving backwards than is advisable for surviving the upper ranks of 145 pounds, but he's deadly when he's moving forwards.
  • Augusto Montano (C) is a spastic, herky jerky fighter, and must have been frustrating to fight for Belal Muhammad (B). Honestly, I feel like Muhammad started a little too slow again (as he did against Alan Jouban), but once he got going he's a really great striker with surprisingly good kicks.
  • The fight between Antônio Carlos Júnior (C) and Leonardo Augusto Guimarães (F) was pretty fucking boring and really looked like neither fighter belongs anywhere near a UFC level of combat.
  • The fight between José Alberto Quiñonez (A) and Joey Gomez (A-) was one of the best I've ever seen at that weight class and easily the best of the night. It had literally everything a fight fan wants with great scrambles, back-and-forth action and momentum, knockdowns, brawling, technical striking. It was fucking incredible. Shame on the UFC for not rewarding such high quality.
  • Say what you will about Dana fucking White but the dude is a pretty good talent scout. Randy Brown (B-) looked like he was having a lot of trouble with Erick Montaño (C+) through two rounds, but the Mexican fighter underestimated Brown's very tight high elbow guillotine (or anaconda or whatever it was he used with those crazy long limbs). I don't like Brown's chances against tougher competition but he will submit anybody dumb enough to stick their neck out like that.
  • I thought it was fairly obvious that Albert Morales (B) easily won the first two rounds and with the point deduction he was up 29-27 at the end against Alejandro Pérez (D). It's a shame that Perez waited until the last round to decide to do anything, as he spent the first 10 minutes walking backwards getting hit. His aggression and fury in the third round would have made him a fan favorite if he'd done that in each of the first two.
Anyway, that's enough about some scrub card in a borderjumper town of buttfuck nowhere, Texas. Next weekend we get to see whether Cyborg circumcized enough clit to get down to 140 against some hapless chick I've never heard of.

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