The main card of the show went pretty much how I thought it would. Actually if you read my fight analysis and predictionsI was pretty much spot on with everything except Jardine winning the decision. I thought all of the fights were pretty good except Jardine vs. Vera. Then again, maybe it was just that fight not living up to the hype some people had for it. Let's take a look at my thoughts on each fight:
Marcus Davis vs. Paul Kelly-I hate to boast and brag, but I damn near wrote the script for this fight. I thought Davis had better stand up and that Kelly would wind up trying to take him down at some point. That's exactly what happened for the most part, except I thought Davis would hurt Kelly with punches first. I mentioned that Davis had improved his ground game drastically, and he shows it again tonight. However, like Joe Rogan said you could see that guillotine coming a mile away.
Chris Lytle vs. Paul Taylor-Lytle came out just as I thought he would throwing bombs trying to put Taylor away. I have to give madd props to Paul Taylor, he has an incredible chin and made the fight competitive. Actually, as Lytle began to gas in the second round I thought Taylor would have the opportunity to put him away. However, as I mentioned earlier Lytle is very experienced and used it to survive the next round and a half. This was a very entertaining fight and rightfully won fight of the night honors.
Luiz Cane vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou-Oh man, did I ever call this one...many people didn't know about Cane. However, I knew he was no joke and he proved me right in this one. Sokoudjou came out really aggressive and Cane just absorbed everything like a machine and kept coming. Now we are beginning to see more holes in Sokoudjou's game as he gets more experience under his belt. The way he burst on the scene in PRIDE kinda made you list him as a top ten LHW. However, he'll be dropping from my rankings at the end of this month. As I mentioned in the predictions, Cane is a fighter to keep an eye on.
Keith Jardine vs. Brandon Vera-BOOO@ this fight. I guess with Vera we can finally listen to him and "believe what we see, and don't believe the hype." Because although he looked better in this fight, it's the second sub par outting in a row for him in the LHW division. I thought he tried to be to damn pretty on the defensive side of things and talked too much. Hey Brandon, instead of verbally telling Jardine he didn't hit you with that punch...how about telling him with a counter left or something? It was a very close fight, but Jardine was simply the busier fighter although he didn't land much offense either. I had him winning the split decision, so I think the judges got it right on that one.
Micheal Bisping vs. Chris Leben-Fight went just like I thought it would with Leben stalking looking for the big left, and Bisping sticking and moving. It was a pretty entertaining bout with Bisping showing a decent chin, because Leben caught him a few times. I agree with Bisping that he is still 1-2 fights away from earning a shot at Anderson Silva. Bisping was confirmed as one of the coaches for TUF 9 tonight as well.
The only REAL gripe I had with this card was the UFC only showing 5 fights. I mean I know they have to have the commercials and all that, and that the card was FREE. However, they missed a GOLDEN opportunity to showcase one of their up and coming heavyweight fighters in Shane Carwin. His fight only lasted 1:31 seconds and to be sure they could have squeezed that fight in there with the gazillion commercials that were shown. He won impressively by mounting his opponent and dropping bombs on his face until the referee stopped the fight.
What are YOUR thoughts on UFC 89?
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