UFC 70: Nations Collide

2007-04-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

UFC 70: Nations Collide marks the first time the UFC will return to England since UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall almost 5 years ago. UFC 70 will make its way back to the UK this Saturday (Sunday RP time) at the MEN Arena in Manchester, England.

UFC 70 will feature the second fight of Mirko ‘Crocop’ Filipovic in the UFC against Brazilian Gabriel ‘Napao’ Gonzaga. This is a classic match between a striker against a grappler. On paper, this looks to be a big mismatch as Crocop has far more experience not just fighting in MMA but also with the quality of his opponents. Gonzaga is no slouch either as he holds a professional MMA record of 7-1. His only loss was ironically to Fabricio Werdum, Crocop’s teammate and himself a Brazilian Jiujitsu blackbelt.

Let’s analyze further this matchup. Gonzaga is a Brazilian Jiujitsu blackbelt. 5 of his 7 victories were from submissions while the other 2 were KO/TKO wins. His only loss was a TKO loss to Werdum almost 4 years ago. Gonzaga was very impressive in his last fight against erstwhile-unbeaten Carmelo Marrero via armbar at UFC 66. Gonzales showed excellent patience and ground control in submitting Marrero in round 1 carefully setting up the armbar from full mount.

Crocop on the other hand needs no further introduction. Before he signed with UFC, Crocop recently won the Pride Open Weight Grand Prix by knocking out Wanderlei Silva and defeating Josh Barnett on the same night. Widely known as the world’s #2 heavyweight MMA fighter behind Fedor Emelianenko, Cropcop’s vaunted left high kick is a thing of beauty. Crocop has faced the who’s who in the heavyweight division of MMA. Known as a pure stiker, Crocop is also known to have one of the best takedown defenses in the game today. In compiling a 22-4-2 win-loss-draw MMA record, he has only lost once by KO to Kevin Randleman in what was considered one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport. To date, that was the only loss he has avenged as he has yet to face against his three other tormentors, Fedor, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and most recently to Mark Hunt. Crocop’s other losses were by decision against Fedor (Unanimous) and Hunt (Split). He has been submitted only once to Minotauro by armbar in a highly anticipated match up of two of the world’s best. Crocop ran an undefeated streak of five matches from last year to his latest match last February in his UFC debut.

Unless Gonzaga can takedown Crocop and keep him there, there’s no way Gonzaga will win. Crocop’s accurate strikes will be too much for Gonzaga to handle. I see this not going past the second round via a highlight reel KO.

In another interesting match up, former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski will take on Crocop’s teammate and BJJ coach, Fabricio Werdum. Both are ranked amongst the top 10 heavyweights in the world and should catch the attention of the hard-core MMA fans. This is another classic match up of striker vs grappler. This might be the match that will determine Arlovski’s future in the UFC. Coming off two successive losses to Tim Sylvia, people began to doubt Arlovski’s confidence and skills in fighting against the top fighters in the world. Arlovski came back with a vengeance with a victory over BJJ world champion, Marcio Cruz winning by KO in round 1. Although known for his striking, Arlovski is also a former World Youth Sambo champion making him one of the most complete fighters today.

Werdum has a professional win-loss-draw record of 9-2-1 and has won 6 by submission. His recent win was against another top ten fighter, Alexander Emelianenko, Fedor’s younger brother via arm triangle choke. Werdum caught the attention of the hard-core fans when he fought Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Many expected Nogueira to easily win but to everyone’s surprise, Werdum withstood all of Nogueira’s submission attempts but eventually lost a unanimous decision. It should be noted that Nogueira (the older of the twins) is considered to be the best submission fighter in MMA.

This is going to be a close match that could go either way. Both are virtually equal as both are 6’4 and weigh virtually the same at 240lbs. But I would have to pick Arlovski on this one winning by a late TKO in the third round.

Other match ups on the main card pits Japanese-Brazilian Lyoto Machida vs American David Heath in a light heavyweight match. Machida is widely known as the fighter who handed former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin’s first loss. Machida also has wins over TUF 1 runner up Stephan Bonnar and former UFC welterweight champion BJ Penn. Machida was originally scheduled to fight TUF 1 light heavyweight winner Forrest Griffin but Griffin suffered with a staph infection and was not cleared to fight by the doctors. Expect Machida to win by TKO late in the second or early in the third round.

The Ultimate Fighter 3 light heavyweight winner and England’s very own Michael “The Count” Bisping takes on Australian Elvis “King of Rock and Rumble” Sinosic in another light heavyweight match. French heavyweight Cheick Kongo trades leather with Assuerio Silva of Brazil.

The preliminary matches promises to be a bang as Terry Etim of England faces Matt Grice of the USA in a lightweight match. Another lightweight match between England’s David Lee and Brazilian Junior Assuncao promises to produce fireworks. Other preliminary bouts will have Italian light heavyweight Alessio “Legionarius” Sakara fighting Canadian Victor Valimaki. Welterweight matches include Dennis Siver of Germany going up against Jess Liaudin of France and Edilberto de Oliveira of Brazil versus Paul Taylor of England.

UFC 70 truly is an event where Nations Collide as 11 countries are represented in this event making MMA the fastest growing sport globally.

UFC 65: Bad Intentions

2006-11-19T07:45:00.000-08:00

While everyone was eager and celebrating Manny Pacquiao's KO victory over Erik Morales, I was ecstatic for another reason. Unknown to everyone except the die-hard MMA fans, UFC 65 was held at the same time as Manny Pacquiao's fight. Fil-Am Brandon Vera made a statement that night that he is the next big thing in the talent depleted heavyweight division of the UFC by convincingly knocking out former UFC heavyweight champion, Frank Mir in just 1:09 of the first round.

I'm a big fan of Frank Mir and Brandon Vera. But being a Filipino, I naturally rooted for Brandon to win. But seeing how Mir performed during his last 2 matches after coming back, he was far from the old arm breaking Frank Mir that turned me into a huge MMA fan. He was sluggish when he got grounded and pounded into oblivion by Marcio “Pe De Pano” Cruz. Fans were very surprised to see an overweight Frank Mir in his last fight against TUF 2 veteran, Dan Christison. Although he won that match by decision, people began to question his desire to be back on top. Going into his match with Vera, he probably reflected on his future as a UFC fighter. Badly needing a win, he worked on his striking and lost weight and cut back to 240lbs.

Brandon Vera, on the other hand, is seen as the next best thing in the heavyweight division. Parading the Philippine and American flag behind him on his way to the Octagon, Vera is a fierce competitor as he has competed and won national and Pan Am titles in Muay Thai, Greco Roman Wrestling and Brazilian Jiujitsu. With a 7-0 record before the fight, most of his wins were by TKO. He trains with world-renowned Muay Thai coach, Dutch Rob Kaman. What’s scary is that he says he is more comfortable with his ground game than his striking.

UFC put up this match for 2 reasons. To find out if Frank Mir still has it in him and if Brandon Vera really is the next best thing for the UFC. Brandon has openly told everyone that he wants to be the first UFC fighter to hold the heavyweight and light heavyweight titles at the same time and even called out Chuck Liddell for a fight.

During the fight with Mir, Brandon landed a knee to the face of Frank Mir while inside his Thai clinch. He set up the clinch with a beautiful right straight that staggered Mir. As Mir took the knee to his face, Brandon threw 2 more knees that grazed Mir’s head. Tasting the power of the knees, Mir tried to take Brandon down with a double leg takedown attempt only for Brandon to sprawl. Brandon ended up in side control and pounded Mir until referee Steve Mazzagatti called to a halt the fight at 1:09 of the first round.

For the co-main event, Tim Sylvia retained his heavyweight title with a unanimous decision against Jeff Monson. Sylvia utilized his long reach advantage against the 5-foot-9 Monson. What was impressive about Sylvia is that he showed everyone his take down defense and ground skills by attempting a triangle choke in the 4th round. Monson’s right eye was swollen shut and was cut in the first round. Monson attempted a lot of take downs but could not complete it as Sylvia’s height and reach advantage, coupled with his sprawl, was too much to overcome.

The main event saw a changing of the guard as Georges St. Pierre avenged his only loss in his mixed martial arts career by knocking out Matt Hughes at 1:25 of the second round. St. Pierre’s striking was just too much for Hughes as he utilized his stiff jabs. The first round was a bit uneventful except for the times where St. Pierre landed low blows twice to Matt Hughes. In round two, St. Pierre continued to confuse Hughes by mixing up his strikes with punches and kicks. St. Pierre faked by looking at Matt’s legs, as if going for a leg kick, then switched to the high kick that landed squarely on Matt’s face. Matt fell to the ground and St. Pierre jumped in and finished off the fight by throwing more punches and elbows to Matt’s face. Big John Mcarthy jumped in and waived to signal that the fight is over.

So, what’s next for the UFC? A rematch between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz is scheduled for Dec 30 at UFC 66: Liddell vs Ortiz II. Looking forward to that as I would love to see Tito get knocked out again.

Mixed Martial Arts

UFC 70: Nations Collide

UFC 65: Bad Intentions