UFC 112 4/10/2010

Alrighty, here's the last fight for this current season. Talk about a flood of fights in this past month. Please take a look at the current point standings to see what you need in order to win. So far Randy is on top. I think I'm most interested in the Hughes vs. Gracie fight since both championship bouts are pretty one sided. Who knows, anything can happen. Here are the fights to choose from unless any injuries occur this coming week.

Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia
BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar
Matt Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie
Terry Etim vs Rafael Dos Anjos
Kendall Grove vs. Mark Munoz

Anderson Silva def. Demian Maia Decision I Have a feeling Damian Maia will run away or lay on his back.
BJ Penn def. Frankie Edgar TKO 4th
Matt Hughes def Renzo Gracie TKO 2nd round
Terry Etim def. Rafael Dos Anjos 1st round TKO
Mark Munoz def. Kendall Grove decision

ok, this actually goes live tomorrow morning...so we should get our picks in tonight

Silva def. Maia via 1st TKO
Penn def. Edgar 3rd Sub
Hughes def. Gracie 2nd TKO
Dos Anjos def. Etim decision
Grove def. Munoz 3rd Sub

Hey guys, I am really bummed I won't be able to watch the fights because I'm out of town. Know any good places to watch them online?? Here are my picks, good luck everyone!

Silva def. Maia, KO in the 2nd
Penn def. Edgar, submission in the 3rd
Hughes def. Gracie, TKO in the 3rd
Etim def Dos Anjos, submission in the 2nd
Munoz def Grove via decision

Silva R2 KO
Penn R2 Sumb
Hughes KO R2
Dos Anjos Decision
Grove Decision

Wow, finally Penn got tested. I have a feeling Penn is going to come back and rip the belt away from Edgar the next time. Got to give it to Maia in his fight, he didn't give up and stood up most of the time to Silva (though he didn't really have a choice). But damn, Silva is freaking crazy, I'd be scared if I was in the same ring when he can clown around and still kick your ass. Lets see if Chael Sonnen can back his trashtalk and put up a challenge if they ever get together in the ring. Anyhow, here are the results:

Fight Results:

Silva Decision
Edgar Decision
Hughes R2 KO
Dos Anjose R2 Submission
Munoz R2 KO


Points:

Brian: 3, 0, 2, 0, 1 = 6
Johnny: 1, 0, 2, 1, 0 = 4
Nicole: 1, 0, 3, 0, 1 = 5
Randy: 1, 0, 2, 1, 0 = 4

And the season winner is Randy! Congrats buddy. I'll post the final point totals and you can suggest what you'd like as your prize.

Yes I agree. Awesome win by Edgar. I loved his footwork and head movement. I'm confused as to why BJ would not take Edgar down. Maybe BJ spent too much time on cardio and not enough on take downs. Also, even if BJ does work really hard I don't think he will ever be as fast as Edgar. BJ just doesn't move like that. Even though Edgar is the champ I think he can be beaten by a better wrestler who is willing to eat a couple of shots to get the takedown. Although I hate Diego Sanchez I think he might be able to beat Edgar.

I used to be slightly annoyed at Anderson's antics but now I think I just plain hate him. I thought they should have taken the belt away from him for not fighting and not engaging. Come on you're the freaken champ!

Did they say Anderson is locked in to fight GSP? If so, Go GSP!

Randy Congrats on winning this round of picking.

Yeah, it was weird that BJ didn't attempt to take it to the ground. I was confused as to what his strategy was since Edgar was as little too quick and evenly matched standing up. Penn kinda took the fight like the previous two against florian and sanchez but unlike them, Edgar is a pure lightweight while those guys dropped to the weight division and don't have that quickness and cardio.


I'm also getting sick of Silva. He could have killed Maia and just ended the fight. I don't get what's happening in his head. Dana White should create the first handicap fight and get two guys to fight him.

I know im biased but Penn out struck edgar on Sherdog, fightmetric, and fightmatrix. Just because a fighter moves around a lot more than another, doesn't meant he's out-striking him. If you watch the fight again, about 80% of the replays in between rounds were BJ landing the shots. Edgar had a great takedown and some kicks and BJ did look a lot more tired than edgar in the last 2 rounds. I'm sorry guys, call me biased but I don't see how BJ lost more than 2 rounds. He definitely lost the 5th round and maybe the 4th. Edgar ran around the cage all fight and anytime he engaged or landed, BJ countered and landed more effective and harder shots.

All 3 sherdog analysts scored the fight for BJ...I sorry but even if you guys hate me for standing up for him, BJ definitely won that fight. He looked very human and unimpressive in doing so...but he got robbed.

well nobody is going to dispute Randy's bias toward BJ. Also nobody hates you. we reserve our hate for fighters like Frank Mir and Anderson Silva (newly added to the "I hate you" list). But it's clear that BJ left it in the judges hands which no champion should do. Also even if BJ hits harder that's not something the judges can determine. With that said I think the FIGHT was a draw but Edgar clearly won the CONTEST. Even if BJ landed more strikes (was it close?) Edgar clearly had octagon control. Edgar controlled the pace of the fight for all five rounds. The judges also look at the figher's face between rounds. BJ always looked disappointed and I think had more bruising. Bruising really shouldn't be an issue but in a close split decision I think i may play a role in the judging. But with UFC judging you never know what you're going to get. But in this case I agree with the judges.

I don't think octagon control means constantly circling around the center of the octagon while your opponent is the one "chasing" you. Please explain to me how "octagon control" means constantly retreating. If that's the case, then Clay Quida should win all of his fights but doing what edgar did.

All edgar did was throw a few strikes and move back and circle away. The numbers were definitely close.... but BJ landed 10 more strikes to the upperbody and 22 more strikes to the head. Edgar landed 9 more strikes to the lower body and 4 more leg kicks. All I know is that everyone major MMA website (ie Sherdog, MMA junkie, MMA torch, espn, yahoo) all had BJ winning the fight ranging from 49-46 to 48-47. Looking disappointed after a fight shouldn't have anything to due with the decision...maybe he was disappointed in his performance....and he should because he looked horrible. But being a jitterbug doesn't win you a fight. So if BJ put his hands up and smiled like edgar, then he would have won?

I know you guys might just read this and think Randy is an idiot BJ fan and being unreasonably biased...but I felt the same way w/ the Vera-Couture and Shogun-Machida fights. To a lesser degree because I'm a Couture fan and indifferent towards both Shogun and Machida.

On sherdog forums, people who have BJ listed as one of their most hated fighters admits he won the first 3 rounds and lost the 4th and 5th.

Ok Well Agree to disagree. hehe.

Also, Any idea what kind of gift card you want?

I'm sure you guys read the yahoo articles but just in case

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-ufcsilva041010

Basically the point I want to highlight is that Silva will not be fighting GSP in his next fight. Dana says GSP is too good for Silva.

Hey everyone! Does anyone know a link to the Penn/Edgar fight? After all this talk I want to see it! I just read an article about how angry Dana is at Anderson. Apparently he threw the belt at Anderson's trainer because he didn't want to present it to him and even said that Anderson might start fighting on the undercard. Also, Dana said he's not allowed to drop to 170 to fight GSP because he doesn't deserve it. Yikes. At least when I saw Anderson fight in Philly he was being weird at first but knocked out Forrest.

Anyways, Randy what kind of gift card do you want? When is the next fight? Also, Brian has a friend who is really into UFC/MMA and is responsible enough to keep up w/us on our picks, is this a good time for him to join? Speaking of being responsible, I'm really sorry I came in late twice this "season" with picks, I will make sure not to do that anymore since it's not fair to all of you guys.

Lastly (I promise!) Brian and I will be in the SB area the first weekend of July, I'm shooting for being down there on the 3rd so mark your calendars because we want to see you both!!!

Ok, that's funny, Brian posted the article I was talking about as I was writing my other post!!

Overall I think it was pretty difficult to score the fight for the BJ fight. My basis that BJ should have at least kept the belt is comparing the fight to the Machida-Rua fight when that was much easier to score than this one. I didn't think either guy did more damage to the other or even necessarily had more control overall. Though you have to admit Edgar seemed to have a better game plan than BJ and stuck to it when it was working for him while BJ didn't seem to adjust too much or look like the dominating champion he is supposed to be. But I'm glad that it was a even fight compared to all the one sided champion fights we've had since Machida-Rua. I feel like BJ is gonna come back even better and take the belt back if he gets the rematch. There is a positive note with Edgar winning, it makes the lightweight division a lot more interesting now since if BJ pretty much cleared the whole division. Now there's a lot more possibilities and who knows, maybe Florian will finally win the belt and lose it to BJ later.



Anyhow....... Feel free to invite any new comers to our pool. The next fight is in May so we have some time

Hey nicole...you can watch the fight on mma-core.com

I'll email you guys my address for the giftcards, thanks

Hey Johnny,

My whole point isn't that BJ dominated edgar and got robbed, it was close but he still got robbed. He looked horrible and Ive written that twice already, but he still should have won the fight. It's like if GSP only gets a few takedowns the next fight while the other guy doesn't do much, then GSP should still win regardless of how much he dominated his previous opponents.

People might not see my side just because I'm a BJ fan, but sites like ESPN, Yahoo, Sherdog, etc. are nationally recognized mma sites and all have BJ winning on the scorecard. In fact, BJ doesn't do interviews w/ Sherdog because they have a bad relationship...so if anything Sherdog would be biased against Penn. Joe Rogan even said that he thought Edgar only won the 5th round and the 4th was up in the air. I do appreciate everyones' opinions here, but this would be a much bigger deal had GSP gotten robbed because he's more nationally well liked compared to BJ.

I agree with you Randy, BJ did get robbed. Stupid sports spoilers (IE Yahoo) ruined the fight for me when I read that Edgar won in the headlines before I got a chance to watch. When I finally saw the fight, I didn't see how they came to the score cards like that in the end. Give it a few weeks and I bet there will be a judge making a comment saying that they should have scored it differently after reviewing the fight from the tapes like what happened after machina-rua.

Yea I had to be careful with tv and internet all day because it was live so early in the US. I worked Saturday and my co-worker kept on warning me that he was going to ruin it for me. Yahoo is by far the worst site because they have those stupid headliners on the homepage and also in yahoo mail.

Speaking of yahoo....
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/White-says-Silva-will-be-cut-if-he-repeats-UFC-1?urn=mma,234279

Dana is pissed and rightly so. Side note: Jim Rome went to UCSB.