TUF 9 Finale Recap: Diego Sanchez Defeats Clay Guida

First of all, my apologies for just now getting to this everyone.  I had to take my wife out to celebrate her birthday last night, and I've been busy all day with Father's Day.  So I JUST now got to watch the fights from last night.  The event went pretty much how I expected except a couple of things:

I didn't expect Andre Winner to lose...nor Demarques Johnson, but they did. 

I kind of expected Joe Stevenson to fight the way he did, and actually he fought just as I said he would if he was going to win.  Nate Diaz needs to work on his wrestling something serious, and/or just make the move down to 145lbs.  I've repeatedly that he has always relied on his BJJ off his back entirely too much.  The better fighters know how to stay away from making the mistakes the lower tier fighters make, and we see what happens as Diaz has now lost back to back fights.

Chris Lytle and Kevins Burns did just what everyone knew they would do. 

Now on to the fight that everyone is talking about and/or debating.  First of all, how in the world did anyone score that fight for Clay Guida? 

Diego Sanchez dominated Clay Guida the entire first round and that has to be scored a 10-8.  He dropped Guida with a head kick and was punishing non-stop before that with combinations and flying knees.  If that isn't a 10-9 round there has never been one.  In Round 2, we say Guida get the take down like a couple of elbows and hammer fists but didn't pass Sanchez's guard or anything.  In fact, Diego Sanchez caused more damage with delivering elbows to Guida's head while holding Guida in his guard.  If anyone was going to give a round to Guida this was the one.  Although I scored it even simply because of the damage that Sanchez caused to Guida with the elbows.  The third round saw Diego win the first 3 mins of the round on the feet, only to go for a submission(that was locked in) and then lose position.  He then had a couple of other submission attempts in which Guida managed to avoid.

I give Clay Guida FULL credit for being able to take a beating and being tough, but he wasn't even close to winning that fight.  How could what Guida did in the last 1:30 count for more than what Sanchez did in the first 3 mins or so?  All he did was fall into Sanchez's guard when Diego was going for that arm triangle submission.  This is another prime example of what is wrong with judging in MMA.  There needs to be clear guidelines as to what counts for what.  I'll be putting up another post shortly in regards to this.  The quick results are after the jump.

Diego Sanchez def. Clay Guida by Split Decision

-TUF 9 Welterweight Finals:
James Wilks def. DaMarques Johnson by Submission (RNC) at 4:54, R1
-Chris Lytle def. Kevin Burns by Unanimous Decision
-TUF 9 Lightweight Finals:
Ross Pearson def. Andre Winner by Unanimous Decision
-Joe Stevenson def. Nate Diaz by Unanimous Decision

Preliminary Bouts:
-Melvin Guillard def. Gleison Tibau by Split Decision,
-Brad Blackburn def. Edgar Garcia by Split Decision
-Tomasz Drwal def. Mike Ciesnoleviscz by TKO (Strikes) at 4:48, R1
-Nick Osipczak def. Frank Lester by Submission (RNC) at 3:40, R1
-Jason Dent def. Cameron Dollar by Submission (Anaconda Choke) at 4:46, R1