MMA Dominate - Love the fight

UFC Fight Card
by Early Bryant

After watching the UFC fight card this past weekend, I continue to learn more about the sport’s evolvement and the fans lack of understanding how the sport is evolving. Particularly of course is the Anderson Silva fight where he circled, chased, and got chased for five rounds. Not to mention he harassed Demian Maia to engage him and to come to him. Some people, including a lot of writers, have said that Silva ran from Maia and wouldn’t engage him. I say that is a strong level of crap. Maia is a Jujitsu expert, type of guy that if he gets you to the ground, the fight is at high risk of being over.

Silva’s ground game, regardless of what announcers like Joe Rogan say, is mediocre. If you watch any of his fights from Pride before the UFC, you can see him not taking the fight to the ground. The few times Silva has had the fight go to the ground, he had been in trouble. Coming to the UFC when Travis Lutter, a world-class wrestler, took Silva to the ground Lutter mounted him and threatened to finish the fight. Silva was able to get out of the position and was able to finish the fight submitting a poorly conditioned Lutter.

The point I am trying to make is Anderson Silva is a standup fighter, actually a Muy Thai fighter. He has Jujitsu skills and has shown some, just don’t expect him to pit his Jujitsu against a Thales Leites or a Demian Maia. He is going to want to stand and trade with guys and that is why he was able to beat fighters like Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, James Irvin and Nate Marquardt with ease. Now the taunting of Maia during the fight and the long breaks in the action was very unnecessary. That is the referee’s duty to take points or give warnings during a fight. The taunting could be referred to as stalling and removing a point could have motivated Silva to finish the fight. Besides that, there is nothing the UFC can do to punish him for his performance.

They could try and pay him less and he probably won’t resign, but they cannot make him fight at a higher weight if he doesn’t want to. They cannot make him do anything. What I do expect is the UFC to likely try to convince the over populated 205 division to move a few of their guys to 185 to motivate Silva to fight more competitively.

That, more than anything, is the real problem; no competition. The only reasonable fight for Silva at 185 was Dan Henderson, and besides him, no one else truly deserved a shot or pitted a real challenge. You can review the divisional pound for pound ranking and I would honestly say that not too many on that list are fighters that I am eager to watch. I guess in the end Silva may need to move to 205 because he has no honest competition at 185.

B.J. Penn may be done, and I know a lot of you are going to argue with this. Frankie Edgar executed the perfect fight plan. I just didn’t see Penn go after the fight. He didn’t attack like he has in previous fights. I was waiting for the typical excuse he has after a lost, but nothing so far. I think he may have not been as conditioned as people thought he was or maybe a younger quicker fighter just out worked him. Whatever it was, he didn’t have the fire he usually has during most his fights.

UFC 111 has shown me that George St. Pierre is a very complete fighter. Like Silva, he fights to his strength which is his ground game. For five rounds, I watched him take Dan Hardy down and beat him up on the ground. What I also watched was another quality opponent make it the full 25 minutes. Ever since being knocked out by Matt Serra, GSP has decided that ground and pound is his key to victory. He beat Jon Fitch, Serra, Josh Koscheck, Thiago Alves, and Penn all with ground and pound. A win is a win, yes, but no one is complaining with GSP just lying on a guy for 25 minutes.

He is content with a decision victory so he doesn’t put himself at risk of another loss. I just ask what is the difference between his ground and pound and Silva’s standup? I cannot criticize either fighter due to me respecting their technique, I just think the common MMA fan is going to grow impatient with fighters that take wins instead of fighters that take knockouts, just ask Tim Sylvia.

I am excited to watch the Strikeforce card this weekend, with fights like Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields, Gegard Mousasi vs. Muhammed Lawal, and Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki , all fighters that can be UFC champions. Mousasi is arguably one of the best fighters in the world, with Fedor Emelianenko endorsing him. That fight is probably going to be one that secures superstardom in MMA.

Herderson has the experience and standup to beat Shields, especially since he himself is a world-class grappler and can perhaps counter Shields excellent ground game. Melendez would be best to not go to the ground with Aoki or he is going to get submitted or have something broken. If you aren’t familiar with Aoki, please YouTube him. He recently broke and guys arm and gave him the middle finger after doing so.

With that being said, the year has been great as far as MMA has gone and I can’t wait to see where the remainder of the year takes us. First half of the fight season is going to make an awesome second half I’m sure. Enjoy it with us here at MMADominate.

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