Most of the time I'm pretty interested in watching the UFC Countdown shows, UFC Primetime, and HBO's 24/7 series. However, last night I was kind of just going through the motions and debating if I was even going to stay up to watch the show. The wife fell asleep on the sofa, so I was like why not, tomorrow's Friday and I'm not really sleepy right now. I'm glad I watched the show. I still think Rampage is going to knock Keith Jardine's face off, but the way they profiled all four fighters was very good.
In Jackson, you got a sense for where he is right now. It's like he's on a mission and he's making the big sacrafice in taking his entire training camp over to the UK for the second time. They also did a good job of describing his thought process going into his last fight against Wanderlei Silva. A fight that definitely a do or die fight for him against a guy he'd been brutally KO'ed by twice. It gave me the sense of, "man if he can overcome that there's no way he's gonna lose this fight against Jardine" type of feeling.
In Jardine, they went with the only angle they could have gone with. The hardworking, blue collar, never quit fighter that's always dangerous. I also like the fact that they brought in his father to give his perspective. They had dude leaning up against a caterpillar machine! Also, mentioning the type of work he did just reinforced the whole angle they were going for. Although Jardine is the noticeable underdog, they made him beating Jackson believable.
I was more interested in the Carwin session moreso than the Gonzaga portion. I mean we basically know Gonzaga's story for the most part. They basically emphasized the physical strength of Carwin with him lifting weights and whatnot. I thought it was great that they showed more of his earlier fights while also showing his two UFC fights. They needed to do that since none of his fights have gone out of the first round. They harped on the conditioning factor in this fight that I wrote about earlier this week. However, after watching this segment I'm glad I went with Gonzaga. His all around game is just much more refined and the footage they showed between both fighters showed it. However, just the sheer physicality of Carwin could be a factor in this fight for sure. The guy is a monster.
All in all I thought it was a very good and effective countdown show. It'll be interesting to see how many people watched it, and if that will translate into PPV buys. If you watched the show, give me your thoughts on it.
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