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UFC 187: The report cards


Fluke gonna fluke. No, but seriously, Chris Weidman took another step toward validating his place atop the 185-pound ladder by beating yet another senior citizen of MMA in relatively convincing fashion. With the victory, his last three wins are now against guys whose combined age reaches 114. Jersey Shore is basically fucking up the old folks home of the UFC and won't stop until every last 38-year-old saggy-tits TRT-deflated has-been is retired.

Other than the fluke's third title defense, it was a great night of fights at UFC 187, which delivered despite a thorough lack of Jon Jones assholery (Weidman stepped in for that) and K-habib k-nocking Cerrone out. There were six finishes, a few surprises, and perhaps best of all no hair-pulling girl fights. The only major disappointment is that the UFC felt obliged to give The Fluke a performance bonus for finishing a guy in two minutes that he was whining and crying about being on the juice the day before. Maybe Fluke should challenge Nick Newell next?

Ok, let's get to the fights.

Flawless Assraping, Cormier Triumphs

When my buddy and I watched Rumble drop Cormier early in the fight, launching the tubby fucker like 6 fucking feet across the cage, I admit I was worried for a minute. Despite all the AJ nuthuggery I never truly bought into the whole power puncher bullshit going around. My thoughts were that Cormier was going to grab a hold of Johnson, drag him to the mat, and beat that ass like a popeye chicken wing.

But hey, credit where it's due. Johnson lands some fucking bombs when he connects. At least five of his strikes looked like they'd put The Fluke in a coma and honestly I can't believe DC shrugged that shit off like that. Having said that, Johnson landing five impressive strikes isn't enough to win a belt in the UFC. I don't know whether that hyperbaric chamber from UFC embedded was working or not but dude looked like he needed an oxygen mask after the first few minutes of the fight. There's normal gassing out, there's Mark Hunt levels of gassing out, there's Rolles Gracie levels of gassing out, and then there's what we saw last night.

Did Rumble really think he could show up to a 25 minute fight with an OIympic beast like Cormier equipped with two minutes of cardio? But in a way, this was classic Rumble. This was the same mentally weak quitter who was choked out by Josh Koscheck and Vitor Belfort. After the second round of DC's flawless beached whale lay and pray, Rumble looked like he didn't even want to get off the mat. And when Cormier finally sank in the rear naked in the third, it was a no hooks sub. Dude pulled a Jimmy Quinlan in the biggest fucking fight of his life. Well, you can't teach the kind of power Rumble has, but you also can't teach mental toughness. You either got it or you're tapping like a bitch.

Ironically, dude gets in front of Rogan after the fight and gives everybody a speech about never giving up. Uh, you literally just tapped out, bro. Nevertheless, Johnson was extremely classy in defeat, reaffirming the theory that nice guys finish last. Douchebags from New Jersey, meanwhile, win the middleweight title. Which brings us to...

I don't think anybody has any doubt that TRT Vitor takes The Fluke and kicks the Jersey Shore right out of Long Island. We got some glimpse of what the old lion was capable of when he nearly decapitated Weidman in the first round. In case you were wondering, the above image doesn't show The Fluke enjoying his shitkicking very much. The vacant stare, the off balance pose would indicate dude's world is very much in danger of going bye bye.

I want to be crystal clear here. Weidman finished Vitor in convincing fashion. But this was the most beatable The Fluke has looked since becoming champion. First of all, it cannot be overstated that Belfort without his TRT is not a fighter in contention of anything but an adult diaper. Deflator or whatever the fuck you kids were calling him before the fights, was an apt description. Weidman picked on the 1981 version of Muhammad Ali. Of course he won. And yet, like all old lions, Belfort was still extremely dangerous, putting The Fluke in all kinds of trouble before instinct and self-preservation took over and it became a grappling match.

Consider this: TRT Belfort destroyed Dan Henderson, Luke Rockhold and Michael Bisping in devastating fashion. He also survived to Round 4 against arguably the modern GOAT of MMA, including four rounds of GnP from the sharpest fucking elbows since Matt Hamill's last relevant fight. This version of Belfort lasted 20 seconds on the ground against Weidman. Some people (who might have the same name as a gay pride musical) would argue that's because The Fluke has devastating ground and pound. In truth, Belfort was nothing but a shell of his former self, with little but his own belief in Christ to take on a man who's barely escaped his 20s.

After the fight, The Fluke betrayed his own insecurities by begging people to like him, shouting "stop doubting me!" Clearly only a man who knows his victories are tainted would feel the need to beg people to validate his success. I guess what it really boils down to is that Jersey Shore just isn't very likable. If that means he has to defeat both Luke Rockhold and Jacare Souza to convince people he really owns the golden strap then that's squarely on him. Fluke gonna fluke.

Personally, I'm very much looking forward to Weidman facing some true competition closer to his own age. It wouldn't surprise me if he gets humbled by Rockhold and Souza. But if he doesn't, no big surprise. You know what they say: You can take the trash out of Jersey...

The result of this fight was never in doubt for a second. Donald Cerrone is an elite kickboxer who looked a full weight class bigger than John Makdessi and could land headkicks against the smaller striker at will. What was shocking is that the fight lasted as long as it did.

Not only did Makdessi hold his own out there, he took some devastating shots in the chops without so much as a grimace. When Cerrone landed a flush head kick early on, the sound was so loud I thought his fucking brains were going to come out of the back of his head, JFK style. But not only did he eat all those shots, that left jab was landing all day on Cerrone. The weirdest fucking weakness in his standup style, Cowboy was pretty exposed by Nate Diaz's relentless jabfest in their fight many moons ago. Makdessi seems to be the first guy to have watched that tape.

Don't get me wrong. Cerrone was murdering this motherfucker for the better part of 10 minutes until he landed a jaw-shattering head kick. I mean, he looked great out there, as usual. But there are takeaways to be found in this fight for the next unfortunate victim matched up against Cowboy.

Let's just get one thing out of the way real fast. Andrei Arlovski is not fucking back. He's not winning the heavyweight title. He's not doing shit. He's not back in the same way senior citizen Mirko Cro Cop isn't back, in the same way Frank Mir isn't back. Look, these heavy handed cunts are dangerous on any given Sunday but they are not going to make some storybook comeback and restore their former glory atop the UFC. So trust me when I say the Toronto Maple Leafs have a better chance of forming an NHL dynasty than these guys do of lasting in the UFC beyond one or two more fights. And in case you don't know hockey, the Leafs are the most epic chokers in the history of sports.

Having said that, Arlovski looked fucking deadly for an old man. Rather than his usual style of winning via staring contest, Arlovski was aggressive, accurate and brutal. He had Hapa doing the stanky leg dance early and often. Credit goes to Browne for not only staying on his feet after looking like he beer bonged a two-four for the entire first round, but also nearly cracking that famous glass chin of the Belrussian. Arlovski went down late, but Browne was so punch drunk from earlier that he wasn't able to capitalize.

Look, I know Browne was badly hurt but seriously... fuck every single ref who stops a fight while a guy is still standing. Hapa was 19 seconds away from getting a one minute reprieve and he was hurt but he wasn't finished. Why stop a fight when a guy has survived that long and a fight is that exciting? Especially so soon after he fucking floored Arlovski with a counter punch? Blah blah fighter safety... who wanted to see a second round? I sure as fuck did.

Maybe it's not fair to give a better grade to the guy who got swept on the judge's scorecards but this fight established one of two possible things: 1. Joseph Benavidez isn't as good as his UFC ranking or 2. John Moraga is much better than we've seen in previous bouts. It's hard to compare their performances against champion Demetrious Johnson since both got curbstomped (Benavidez twice) so it was good to see how the two fared in toe to toe action.

Although Benavidez's typical Alpha Male wrestling and aggression won the day, Moraga gets huge points for battering Joe B with kicks all night. Even the takedowns weren't a free pass to some fine ground fucking, since Moraga was active on the bottom, cutting open Joe B in the second round and making him pay for doing his wrasslin.

Even though the fight was mildly entertaining you couldn't help at the end feeling like it should been John Dodson out there against Benavidez, while tossing midget Makovsky against Moraga. Oh well.

To quote Seinfeld's arch nemesis Newman in the film Jurassic Park, "Dodson! We got Dodson over here! See, nobody cares." Ok, fine, the guy's name was Dodgson, but same thing. This fight was ranked nowhere high on anybody's giveafuckitude list and quite frankly was kind of a good opportunity to take a shit, piss, or whatever else you didn't have a chance to do earlier because the chick fight got cancelled.

Personally, I aint gonna lie. I was paying more attention to murdering a pizza that had just arrived than I was watching the bouncing midget circus. But from what I saw, Fun Size was holding his own against the only guy to give champion Demetrious Johnson a hard time in his 7 fights atop the tiny people division.

Dodson and Makovsky looked to be firing tit for tat, both landing and defending takedowns and both looking really, really fucking tiny. At the end of the day, Makovsky has to be headed home feeling pretty good about taking away a round from such a highly ranked fighter. Which will no doubt compensate for the fact he still needs to shop at Gap Kids.

Motherfucker. Josh Burkman's fight IQ is so low that he now qualifies for Obamacare. But can you really blame him for his performance? I mean, if you had a guy in all sorts of trouble wouldn't you also back off and let him recover? It sure worked for Thiago Silva in round 3 of his fight with Rashad Evans at UFC 108. The 14-1 Silva was about to hand Evans his second consecutive loss since the Dragon made him do the famous derpface at UFC 98 the year before. Just as Evans looked like he was going to go derp again, Silva backed off and put his hands on his hips and stopped fighting and started huffing and puffing, perhaps thinking he could blow the house down. Burkman must have been paying tribute to that fairytale moment last night.

After spending most of the first two rounds putting himself in hopelessly retarded situations (such as wearing Kim like a Korean backpack), Burkman started the third like a puppet on a Team America mission. Or so it seemed. After a ruthless flurry that included a flying knee, Kim was doing his best Bambi impression across the ice. Then, much like his spiritual mentor Thiago Silva, Burkman backed off and stopped fighting. Then he let him take him down. Then he let him choke him out. What. A. Fucking. Douchebag.

Credit goes to Kim, too. Gone was his reckless spinning shit. His gameplan was takedown city and motherfucker was mayor. And it worked, mainly because Burkman was determined to wrestle with the wrestler. You know, there are often good reasons guys get cut by the UFC, but sometimes several years later people forget those reasons. Let last night be a raging clue as to why "once a scrub always a scrub" is true 99 times out 100.

At a certain point you gotta put the whole "I got bullied" bullshit behind you, realize you are now a terrifying six-foot tall UFC fighter with brutal KO power, and stop being a fucking headcase. Uriah Hall is possibly the most talented fighter on the roster who has absolutely zero ability to deal with head games. I mean, fuck, Rafael Natal, a guy whose standup game resembles a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man at the BEST of fucking times, managed to defeat Hall just by being a big meany.

Don't get me wrong. The judges had their fucking heads up their asses, as usual. But Hall didn't help his own cause. Yes, his head kicks were as golden as ponyboy, and yes his strikes were crisp and accurate. It was clear that Natal was somewhere about 19 levels below Hall. But it didn't matter. Because during large portions of the fight Hall just seemed to disappear.

It's pretty clear that Round 1 was all Hall, but then in Round 2 it seemed like he wanted to prove he could wrassle with the Brazilian. That made Round 3 the tiebreaker. Although he landed the much better shots, Hall basically stopped throwing anything for about three fucking minutes. I still gave him the round but you can't take 3 minutes off in a round and think everything's going to be cool. And what the fuck was Hall doing during all that time? Was he fantasizing about murdering every bully who had ever pissed in his Wheaties? Was he imagining what it would be like to put his hands around Natal's throat and keep squeezing until he hears a "pop"? Who knows? By the time he woke up the fight was basically over. He then stomped out of the cage like a baby.

I had Mike Pyle via KO in Round 1 over Colby Covington of Clovis, California, for weeks. Then I watched the weigh-ins, saw how ripped and confident Colby looked and switched my pick. 11 points worth of cold feet, bitches. Covington is a damn good little wrassler who came out of nowhere to beat a fairly decent gatekeeper for the 170 division.

Covington used pretty decent boxing to setup his forceful takedowns, most of which Pyle failed to stop. Which is significant, since Pyle has played something of a spoiler for many undefeated prospects in his career, including the derailing of hype train John Hathaway back at UFC 120. Pyle's also become a bit of a KO artist with his muay Thai attack in recent years, using deadly elbows and knees to finish some decent fighters. And that's on top of a solid ground game.

By Colby was not at all shy about being in his guard, spending large portions of the night controlling Pyle on the ground and landing just enough elbow chin music to keep from getting stood back up. Most of the time anyway. There was a brief scare at the end as Pyle used his slick kimura to sweep into mount and then landed a no hooks rearnaked choke. But Covington kept his cool and reversed the position to finish the fight on top.

Covington looks a hell of a lot like a 170 Weidman, using strikes to set up takedowns. Unfortunately, Colby picked the most decorated wrestlefucking division in the UFC, so if he wants to succeed at the highest levels he's going to need to up his game.

Hey, looks like Khabib Nurmagomedov made it to UFC 187 after all. And I'm not talking about his translation efforts after the fight. I'm talking about the fact that Islam Makhachev looks like, fights like, and dominated like Khabib. I mean, this was a fucking Dagestani destruction of an opponent, outstriking, outwrasslin and outworking Leo Kuntz.

Not only did Makhachev display the same kind of leaping in aggression of Khabib, he demonstrated a fucking glorious hip toss during a clinch reminiscent of Khabib's flying trapeze act against Rafael dos Anjos. Anyone who isn't yet aware should probably wake up to the fact that Combat Sambo is the new Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

What makes his win even more impressive is that although Leo Kuntz isn't a UFC fighter, he was no scrub either. He had compiled a 17-1 record since 2008 and hadn't lost in 15 fights spanning 6 years in the minor leagues. And yeah, it was the minor leagues but I didn't get the sense Kuntz is a bad fighter or that he doesn't belong in the UFC. He just got visited by Dagestan, and that's not an easy visit for anybody.

I swear to Jebus if I have to hear cokehead Goldberg compare a karate guy to Chuck Liddell one more fucking time I'm going to break shit. Yes, fuck-o, every karate guy has a somewhat similar stance, you same-shit saying motherfucker. Just like every fucking Brazilian Jiu Jitsu guy has the same chokes, just like every fucking Tae Kwon Do guy can do crescent and axe kicks. It's not amazing, it's not an intelligent comment, just shut the fuck up already.

Anyway, I felt bad for Sampo because Scoggins looked, as usual, pretty beatable again. I don't understand why Sampo didn't win the last round, but whatever. Like every other fucking karate guy (Goldberg, zip it, don't make me smack a bitch) he's lethal from range but becomes less effective in the clinch. So when Sampo started crowding him in the third round things got a lot closer in the scoring department.

I can't really break down the technical details of the fight too much. I mean, these 125ers move at the speed of light. My buddy made a good point when he said that in their reality time probably moves at a different pace. Like a may fly who is born, mates and dies on the same day, it's normal for these fucking guys to throw 12 punches in the span of 3 seconds. So while I can't really follow all the action I do get a general sense of what's going on out there. Scoggins lit him up on the feet for two rounds until the third, when Sampo turned up the aggression, but too late as it turned out.

That's it, see you next Saturday for another pretty sweet main event. Oh and, Fluke gonna fluke.

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