Lei Tong

Somewhat reminiscant of the one Hazelett got Goulet with last year, but quicker. Too bad Dustin had to had to top himself with the whizzer/ankle-pick/armbar combo against Burkman or else that'd be the leading candidate for Sub of the Year. Ishida's always shown an inclination of wanting to be more than just another wrestler (IE- escaping a tight armbar and then immediately trying for a kneebar), but Class-A SHOOTO fighters (and many of the BJJ'ers he's faced since) tend to be hard to submit.

Well, that's not as old as Erikson or Terkay.

"Struggled mightily" relative to guys like Franklin, Okami or even Starnes & Carter if you want to go back. And that's considering that MacDonald pretty much played into Maia's greatest strengths, which guys such as Marquardt, Henderson and/or Franklin would most definitely not. Thus far, Maia's best competition has almost exclusively been other grapplers with limited stand-up (MacDonald, Herman, Ximu), so Quarry will give Maia something new to deal with if nothing else.

Depends on whether you think McFedries' blitzing of Kampmann or Alexander's half dozen fouls on Schafer softened either opponent up more before the respective ground "battles."

You can talk about Maia falling back down the latter if Quarry manages to beat him, but the same thing would happen should he step up too soon, as YPOV alluded to. MacDonald was a slam dunk style match-up: a fellow BJJ'er with weak striking and inferior wrestling, yet Maia still struggled mightily with him. With the effort they've put forthing building him up as a future champion, I can see why they're going for a slow burn with the guy. I don't necessarily agree with it, but they have their reasons.

At least Red saluted with the correct hand.

Yet he STILL got dropped. By a wrestler. His takedown D looked improved, but the dude's ground game is still weak as fuck, and he can't take damage nearly as well as he can dish it out. EDIT: Adding prelim thoughts as I see them... - McFedries did himself no favors by pretty much throwing himself into Massenzio's first takedown attempt, though he did move nicely off his back for a moment. Massenzio showed NO respect to McFedries on the ground, completely ignoring a triangle attempt before passing, getting tea-bag North-South, and finishing quickly with a Kimura. About what was expected. - Miller/Kimmons was essentially a more prolonged version of Fickett/Neer: Kimmon's gets his back taken in a scramble, and the rest of the fight was Miller slowly working a choke in. No awesome celebration by Miller, though. - Brilz looked good over Morris, though Morris had pretty much nothing to offer on the ground. Brilz went through about every dominant possible position, never giving Morris much a chance to breathe. He could've ended the fight much more easily with a slightly better idea of how to finish from a few positions (top-side crucifix, Matyushenko back control), but he still got the job done eventually. - Lauzon hit a very nice kani basami into a heel hook attempt early on, though Bradley defended well and eventually made it back to his feet. Standing, Lauzon is still extremely aggressive but wanting in the technical department, and actually spent much of fight getting outboxed by Bradley, who dropped him momentarily in the first and landed good body shots throughout. He eventually wised up, shot for a takedown, and it was academic from there. - Gouveia was largely dominated by Jensen, who was more aggressive on his feet, scored more takedowns and did a lot of damage via G&P. However, his aggressiveness eventually came back to bite him in the ass, as Gouveia finally snatched the armbar he had been looking for since early in the fight.

The stand-up is a bit sloppy, but good ground skills displayed by both guys with really entertaining scrambles.

I didn't think he would be able to break Danzig mentally, but Guida proved me wrong again.

Man, you rarely see white belts that oblivious to getting gift-wrapped.

Talent as a fighter doesn't necessarily equate to talent as a coach. There's been numerous examples of high-level fighters in both MMA & boxing who've found it hard to make the transition. Conversely, there's any number of highly successful MMA & boxing trainers who've never had prolonged professional careers and yet are highly successful and sought-after trainers and cornermen. Also, complaining about there being more fights (and, in turn, fighters having to somewhat earn a spot in the house) on TUF is flabbergasting.

The Penn fight was entertaining.

IIRC, Burkman's cut was caused by an awkwardly landed high kick late in the fight, as I think Hazelett caught him with his toe-nails on the kick.

People seemed to have forgotten that Franklin campaigned as a HW before, so it takes more than just retard strength to beat him.

I thought Brown did just enough to win the third round. But, like you said, it was close. I've no complaints over the decision. LOOK AT HIS FUCKING FACE! (BTW, if anyone feels like getting an appropriate screen cap for that quote, that'd be awesome).

The early "USA!" chants gave away their impending reaction.

Brown didn't really land anything in the third aside from the body shots in the clinch. Kim had the takedowns, and slightly more damaging strikes. Close but clear, I thought.

I was hoping for the Los Lonely Boys song, personally.

Yoshida/Karo being clled off is absolutly fucking balls. I'm so unbelievably pissed now. Granted, watching the Kim/Brown fight will be nice, but being a UFC OnDemand memebr means I would've seen it anyways. As for the replacement fight: MMA is booming in South Korea right now, so it's unsuprising that the UFC is looking to tap into the market. My former boss (a Korean) said that Kim's UFC debut was big news amongst the community, the word spreading even to non-fans as himself. I remember an article that the fight was even broadcast live at some ridiculous hour in South Korea, along with news-tickers giving updates on a sports channel, IIRC. I'd be absolutely giddy if this led to Song Un Sik getting brought into the WFA.

Machida/Silva will be a largely boring point-fest from LYOTO, but Alves/Sanchez should be tits, assuming Sanchez has learned at all how to defend leg kicks.

"I don't think Randy can survive (that one big shot)" seems to say "I think Brock one shots Randy if he lands," but whatever. Point taken. That doesn't make Brock a better wrestler... it just makes him bigger (I pointed this out already in saying that the size difference will make the difference in the wrestling exchanges). An Andre Voit may have outwrestled a Kenny Monday in an open-weight match, but that would have more to do with a 40+lbs. weight difference than actual skill. At the end of the match, Voit would still be a two-time all American, while Monday would still be a 2 Olympic medalist and NCAA Div.1 Champion. To simply say that "Brock is a better wreslter than Couture" is to discredit how much of a role the weight will actually play in the fight. Ricco Rodriguez is a strictly average wrestler who managed to score takedowns on Randy due largely to size difference and fatigue. I would say Randleman may not have Brock's sheer strength, but (cliché warning) Randleman's explosive strength is about as high as anyone's in the sport. Even as a medium-sized HW, he managed to ragdoll guys like Waterman. As far as his wrestling goes, he's probably the best folkstyle wrestler to have made a career in MMA, with two National Titles out of 3 Finals appearances, 3 Big 10 titles, and an awesome career record(108-7-3), all in 2 highly competitve divisions (167lbs. & 177lbs.). He may have been one of the biggest MMA busts of all time, but it doesn't take away from his strength and wrestling ability, both of which he used in full against Couture. And, as AboveAverage pointed out, Brock hasn't shown any particular growth in his game aside from being more conservative on the ground, which in turn makes it harder for him to finish. The irony is that, through all of this, I'm not saying Lesnar is going to lose or that he can't become a great fighter. I just want people to temper their erections for the guy and chill on the ridiculous (and sometimes outright untrue) statements about the guy, but I guess that's due at least in part to his pro wrestling background.

I wasn't using either as an example he would take Lesnar (indeed,I picked Lesnar to win in the very same post), but as you pointed out, I was simply offering a rebuttal to the ideas that: a) Lesnar punches harder than anyone's Couture's faced (Rizzo, Liddell). b) Randy hasn't faced a wrestler of Lesnar's caliber (Randleman, Van Arsdale), or is actually a lesser wrestler himself (2-time All-American and years of international experience).

The only thing I'm taking issue with is that people seem to have the impression that Brock is going to put Randy onto queer street the first time he lands a decent punch. You yourself said Randy could not have survived the punch Herring took from Lesnar, which is a ridiculous statement since there's pretty much no evidence that Herring has a better chin than Randy. There's always the chance that Randy has simply reached the point in his career that his chin has "cracked," as happens to boxers, but there's been no real indications so far. I think my annoyance over the hyperbole being thrown around about Lesnar is exacerbated by the fact that it detracts attention from guys who are currently much more important players in the division (Nogueira, Werdum, Gonzaga, and even Velasquez).

If you hold almost anyone down and land clean shots to their face, of course they're going to show. I mean seriously, you're holding up MIR's visage as some sort of measure of a guy's punching power? I'm pretty certain that Pe de fuckin' Pano is not a great example of a massive ground & pounder. And Kim Min Soo? What does that fight prove except that fat judoka often tap quickly when mounted? And besides that, it's not like he actually, you know, FINISHED either Mir or Herring with his massive punching power. Does the guy hit hard? Yes. Has he proven himself to be a KO puncher? Not in the least, which seems to run opposite of what's being thrown around here. In general, the amount of hype being generated would make one think that Aleksandr Karelin circa '97 was competing (which, of course, would be the greatest news ever).

...with, of course, no actual retort refuting the statements pertaining to either guy. Typical.