1561

Wow. Henderson vs. Shogun was crazy, best fight of the year so far. I had it scored a draw, no idea how either man made it through to the end.

1562

Definitely fight of the year. That was an amazing fight. I was thinking at the end “how the hell do you score this?”.

And I’m still amazed that Shogun is only 29 years old.

1563

Bellator lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez defended his title last night and Bellator put the entire fight up on Youtube. It’s a good candidate for second best fight last night, after Shogun - Henderson.

1564

God, it’s annoying to see another Bisping fight. He’s the most shielded fighter I’ve ever seen - set up with one bum after another, and any time they even try to give him a shot against a quality fighter (who is always been well past his prime), he gets destroyed. Mayhem Miller was in disgraceful shape; Jorge Rivera is 90 years old and out of shape - both still made Bisping look terrible and vulnerable at times…his best “win” is against Chris Leben, and some people think he even lost that. Embarrassing how badly the UFC is shielding him to help the UK market.

1565

What the hell was that fight? Mayhem fan here, but that was really a disgraceful shape to be in. I’m really disappointed in him, excepted much more.

1566

Why do people have so much hate for the guy? So what if he isn’t GSP type Mr. nice guy. Also he’s fought top guys a number of times. Leban, Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, and he even went up to 205 to fight Rashad several years ago. I don’t know if he will ever be champion caliber but he’s a legitimate top tier fighter.

1567

Uh, he lost all of those fights (other than a questionable decision vs Leben), so that hardly built his cred. I actually think he did win the Leben fight, but he also clearly lost to Matt Hamil yet won the decision. And he didn’t “go up” to fight Rashad - that was the weight class he was fighting at then. In fact, that loss convinced him to move to MW.

He’s a one dimensional fighter and even his striking would be badly mismatched against top divisional strikers. He’d be utterly destroyed by any top 10 middleweight - I get tears thinking about how badly he’d do against Silva, Sonnen, Belfort, Stann, Okami, Franklin, Munoz, Palheres …he might have a chance against someone like Maia or Marquardt although he’d likely lose - maybe he’d have a chance in a rematch against Wanderlei and some of the gatekeepers like Alan Belcher, but he could easily lose to anyone remotely credible too. Even guys who generally fight at 170, like Anthony Johnson, would probably embarrass Bisping.

He’s a sheltered fighter who has consistently lost when not being pitched fights he should win (and he’s even lost those). He’s far, far, from a “legitimate top tier” fighter, as you suggest. At best, he’s 3rd-4th tier, and in the top 25 fighters in that division in the UFC, and near the bottom of that group.

1568

I’m with Desslock. I like Mayhem but in the past two years he lost a decision to Jake Shields who is a welterweight fighter and won against Kazushi Sakuraba who is so far past his prime I’m afraid he’ll literally die in the ring. He makes for good tv but quality opposition he aint.

Every time Bisping has stepped up in competition he’s failed. If he wasn’t a UK fighter he’d be a mid-level gatekeeper at best.

1569

To be fair, Shields is no pushover and also defeated Henderson. But I have no excuse for the Saku fight, he needs to retire. Mayhem is a mid-level fighter, nothing more, nothing less. He’s probably about on par with Bisping, if he doesn’t gas out.

1570

Mayhem may not get another chance in the UFC: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/12/4/2609883/dana-white-mayhem-miller-tuf-14-finale-michael-bisping

I’d still like to see him get another shot - he’s got to be capable of a better performance. But don’t blame Dana if he boots Mayhem.

1571

What others have said combined with the fact he’s an unlikable douchebag.

1572

Proving that even this forum isn’t safe:

Here’s UFC Fighter Jon Fitch’s skyrim-focused twitter feed (yes really): https://twitter.com/#!/FitchSkyrimTale

1573

GSP out 10 months with blown ACL.

1574

Minotauro, I love you man, but dropping down to grab Mir’s neck was the wrong thing to do and you got your arm broken because of it. Until that point it really looked like you had been right about the first bout, that you didn’t perform because you were sick, because now you were beating up Frank Mir on the feet.

As for the main event, this was my most anticipated fight all year. And the first round was all Machida. Second round Jones adapted like a champ but the real turning point was that left hand. Both men went for the same punch and Jones was just a little bit faster. At first I thought Machida had connected, only to see him crumple to the floor. That standing guillotine at the end was insane. Gotta ask though, if you feel him go limp why the fuck do you keep choking him?

1575

You are taught and even told not to let go of a sub, even if they tap or go limp, until the ref calls it. If it’s deep and the guy has no chance of escaping you then you don’t continue a sub, but in the case of a choke like that you have to commit or the guy will get out.

Usually though you’ll let up a little bit if you think the guy is out and call out to the ref to check.

Otherwise it’s far too easy for the other player to say they didn’t tap, and this actually happens a lot, even in grappling tournaments – someone starts to tap, the winner lets go, the ref didn’t see the tap, the loser suddenly keeps going and denies that he tapped, etc.

1576

Three finishes in a row of former UFC champions…and the guy is only 24. Guess its up to the winner of Evans vs Davis to try and stop the freight train of Jon Jones. If not we could see a Anderson Silva type multi-year run of dominance in the LHW division.

1577

And he did it all in less than a year.

1578

We really need an Anderson Silva/Jon Jones fight now, before Silva gets any older.

Despite being stopped, I still gained respect for Machida and Big Nog for actually dominating their fights before they got caught.

I guess Tito is probably done.

1579

I doubt Anderson wants it. Jones would take it to the ground and use his size and better wrestling to rain down the elbows. He took down Rampage and Machida, I doubt Anderson will do better. There’s a window for Anderson to show his magic but I don’t think even he can get Jones’ timing down before the takedown comes.

1580

You can just watch this past season of TUF for proof of that happening. Twice too by the same guy.