UFC 128 thoughts/rate it

Back from watching the event. I thought the event overall was disappointing considering the value of the parts, but i'm tired and went half on it so maybe my eye was a bit more critical. Plus, Pride fanboyism does play a part. This was kind of the deathblow tonight unless we really want to count Anderson Silva as a PRIDE product. Pardon my passion in this post.

Jones looked/is amazing. Pretty much how he has looked against a much better fighter than he has ever faced. Big time. I'm not on the "nobody is going to beat him for a long time" wagon...mainly because that wagon has quickly come and gone so many times and i think Jones is beatable because a book eventually comes out on everybody...but maybe he'll be a contant at LHW like GSP and Silva are in their divisions. We'll see...Rashad is a different type of matchup and i think Shad can work the takedown on Jones but i'm afraid i got Jones all day in the standup, and i think he wins that fight by TKO, but not as dominant as this one.....but it's a different matchup than Shogun who i would probably pick vs. Shad. Impressed with his muay thai though..with his reach, thats deadly and it looked deadly...and of course the elbows are the scariest thing about his game.

I wanted to get my praise of Jones out of the way first before my next rant, so people don't think i'm trying to discredit the performance, which was amazing and hype affirming but damn...

I'm incredibly disappointed in Shogun's performance. He looked a lot like CroCop did in his earlier fight. Leaning forward, off time, not agressive, etc. What killed me most was that there was a few instances where Jones did one of his flash moves and eitheir was off balance or had his back or shoulder turned to Shogun..Shogun has built his reputation capatilizing on shit like that. Jones put himself(on his own fault, nothing Shogun was doing) in a situations where Shogun makes highlights but we got noting except a hug and a weak takedown attempt, an attempt at a leg lock or something of the like, or a wild, off target swing with no mustard on it. I said when it was still Shogun-Evans that cage rust will play a factor in what Shogun we get like it did vs. Griffin and then Coleman but damn...and yes, i know he was hurt early but he gassed way too early and Jones DID make mistakes and Rua did not even come close to capatilizing on them like he has done to just about anybody who has ever fucked up against Shogun. In short..if Machida got this Shogun in the second fight he probably would not have been punished for fucking up.

Jones may beat Shogun ten times out of ten...but Shogun has a MUCH better fight in him than he displayed tonight. He looked like shit from the jump and PLEASE REMEMBER, this is not the first time Shogun has looked like an unkept asshole after a creamy shit post-layoff...but AMAZING chin. He'll be back.


What i want is Shogun-Machida III. To me, there is still something to find out with another Shogun-Machida fight...this of course pending the outcome of Machida-Couture.


Urijah-Wineland was good. Great takedown D by Wineland but it seemed his gameplan was to ONLY not to get taken down. Thats fine and he did a great job at that but you have to work a plan to WIN THE FIGHT in your game plan as well and i didnt see it. Faber-Cruz next....no more bullshit.

FOTN for me was Jim Miller vs. Kamal...Jim Miller is for real and he's the #1 contender for the winner of Edgar-Maynard. It's time for UFC to officilly back out of their BS hand out to the WEC champion. Jim's striking looked REALLY solid and on par with Frankie and Gray, against a pretty solid stand up fighter in Kamal...not to mention we all know about his BJJ. I think he's a good fight for eitheir of those guys. Don't know if i pick him but he's interesting. I think they will give him the title shot now, especially after a spectacular TKO.

Marquardt vs. Miller was OK. It just got a little boring near the end. Miller has his chances and i was definetly suprised on how competitive the fight was...and thats it. I don't think Nate moves forward with this really.

CroCop...PLEEEEAAAASE RETIRE. Fist off, i think Brendan Schuab SUCKS...thats why i'm upset about this fight despite me thinking CroCop is well over the hill and this is why i picked CroCop. I think even an over the hill CroCop can whoop Schuab and at some points it looked like he would do it despite CroCop being awful now. No explosiveness, no agressiveness, his TDD has passed, and worst of all...he's predictable. Scuab will go on to a bigger fight and get embarrased like he did against Big Country and thats that...i hope CroCop goes out now while everybody still knows he just went on a tad bit past his prime.

Still didnt get to watch any of the other fights.

I'll give the main card a 6 though.

I easily gave it a 9 and I payed for the motherfucker! But it was a lot of fun, all the fights were entertaining except Marquardt vs D. Miller. We really enjoyed the show tonight.

I gave it a 9 just for the significance of it on the history of MMA.

7.5, overall the card was ok.

I gave it a 8 cause of the ass whipping of Shogun. Karma is a bitch huh?

Kind of blah overall on this end. Didn't have the normal big group because of the Cincy tournament game so the enthusiasm was down a little bit. Tried to raise it up a notch for Shogun but that didn't last long


Good thoughts as always Kings

Curious Josh...karma for what?

This question is coming from somebody who's favorite fighter is Lyoto Machida.

KingsOwn19 wrote:

Curious Josh...karma for what?

This question is coming from somebody who's favorite fighter is Lyoto Machida.

I just said that for the Rampage and Shogun fight in Pride.

Quote :

I'm incredibly disappointed in Shogun's performance. He looked a lot like CroCop did in his earlier fight. Leaning forward, off time, not agressive, etc. What killed me most was that there was a few instances where Jones did one of his flash moves and eitheir was off balance or had his back or shoulder turned to Shogun..Shogun has built his reputation capatilizing on shit like that. Jones put himself(on his own fault, nothing Shogun was doing) in a situations where Shogun makes highlights but we got noting except a hug and a weak takedown attempt, an attempt at a leg lock or something of the like, or a wild, off target swing with no mustard on it. I said when it was still Shogun-Evans that cage rust will play a factor in what Shogun we get like it did vs. Griffin and then Coleman but damn...and yes, i know he was hurt early but he gassed way too early and Jones DID make mistakes and Rua did not even come close to capatilizing on them like he has done to just about anybody who has ever fucked up against Shogun. In short..if Machida got this Shogun in the second fight he probably would not have been punished for fucking up.

Jones may beat Shogun ten times out of ten...but Shogun has a MUCH better fight in him than he displayed tonight. He looked like shit from the jump and PLEASE REMEMBER, this is not the first time Shogun has looked like an unkept asshole after a creamy shit post-layoff...but AMAZING chin. He'll be back.

What i want is Shogun-Machida III. To me, there is still something to find out with another Shogun-Machida fight...this of course pending the outcome of Machida-Couture.

Agree with everything you said there. Do you feel the inactivity or surgery played a factor at all with Rua's performance, or is it just all down to Bones size, speed and athleticism ?

Dana said CroCop is done in the UFC. Hopefully he's done fighting, too hard to watch

Ali wrote:

Quote :

I'm incredibly disappointed in Shogun's performance. He looked a lot like CroCop did in his earlier fight. Leaning forward, off time, not agressive, etc. What killed me most was that there was a few instances where Jones did one of his flash moves and eitheir was off balance or had his back or shoulder turned to Shogun..Shogun has built his reputation capatilizing on shit like that. Jones put himself(on his own fault, nothing Shogun was doing) in a situations where Shogun makes highlights but we got noting except a hug and a weak takedown attempt, an attempt at a leg lock or something of the like, or a wild, off target swing with no mustard on it. I said when it was still Shogun-Evans that cage rust will play a factor in what Shogun we get like it did vs. Griffin and then Coleman but damn...and yes, i know he was hurt early but he gassed way too early and Jones DID make mistakes and Rua did not even come close to capatilizing on them like he has done to just about anybody who has ever fucked up against Shogun. In short..if Machida got this Shogun in the second fight he probably would not have been punished for fucking up.

Jones may beat Shogun ten times out of ten...but Shogun has a MUCH better fight in him than he displayed tonight. He looked like shit from the jump and PLEASE REMEMBER, this is not the first time Shogun has looked like an unkept asshole after a creamy shit post-layoff...but AMAZING chin. He'll be back.

What i want is Shogun-Machida III. To me, there is still something to find out with another Shogun-Machida fight...this of course pending the outcome of Machida-Couture.

Agree with everything you said there. Do you feel the inactivity or surgery played a factor at all with Rua's performance, or is it just all down to Bones size, speed and athleticism ?

Most of it's down to Bones being a physical nightmare....but inactivity, surgery, and of course clearly being out of shape played some sort of factor with Shogun..because as i noted, Jones DID make some mistakes in the standup that Shogun typically makes somebody pay for. Plus, those circumstances have played a factor with Shogun before.

Shogun has looked awful three times in the UFC, and each time he was coming off layoff and surgery. Can't argue with an obvious trend. Luckily one of those times he was fighting crappy Mark Coleman otherwise who knows where Shogun would stand right now. Injuries have definetly hampered Shogun's career...i was afraid of this type of performance if he fought Rashad...but i probably think Bones beats him anyway, but a better Shogun might actually make Jones pay for missing on some of those flash moves that leave Jones a little out of defensive position. That does not mean he knocks Jones out anything, but it means he gets some offense in. Shogun would usually be able to expose mistakes because of overagressiveness, but he was lame tonight. I personally thought Bonnar looked more game in his fight with Bones in 2009, but...that was 2009.

Jones is the best LHW in the world today, no doubt. Cannot pick another at 205 or 185 in the world over him, Anderson Silva. The LHW division just got less interesting because Jones will be champ there for a while. My mind is consumed with Jones at HW at the moment..... ............ When he takes his fitness to a Reem level, he could become just as dominant one day. Scary. I think the playing field is as close to level as it will ever be for his career at HW but he can be champ there none the less.

Be sure to look for me in the rooting for an upset in Jones next fight section down the road, I'll probably be there for a long, long..... long long time. I did like it better when the best guy was someone I am a fan of. Not a fan of this guy unfortunately.

Shogun needs to stand up and get back to training and fighting, get some traction back, I think he will be back but winning over Jones.... not impossible just highly doubtful, just like for the rest of the division right now. I really don't think it matter if Evans decides to fight Jones or not, I don't think he will win. I do think Evans should fight him though, he is a former champ, he should want to reclaim the title. The nature of their training together though... Evans might or might not fight him. He might know already his chances are not good but I don't know, I have assumptions though.

In a way I didn't know what to think about Faber going into this fight. I just thought he could and should win. I have thought he could but not necessarily should beat Cruz though. He looked good stayed solid after a less then effective first round, he turned around the take down situation effectively and finished strong, though I'm still not in the 'he should beat Cruz' line of thinking. That makes me want to see them fight more. Pretty sure Faber is gonna be a TUF coach, I wonder if Cruz joins him there.

I think the whole any fighter over the age of 30 that gets caught needs to retire rhetoric needs to cool down. Cro Cop is up and down and I thought he was looking up for this fight. I expected him to be beaten by Schaub but he preformed much better than I thought he could and the fight was on it's way to being a 28-28(29-28) draw on my card. But he got caught. The right reminded me a lot of the right that dropped Machida. The next punch though, I would of liked it if he didn't throw it cause Mirko was looking pasta, but he was in destroy mode, in the moment. But to instantly say retire, not after that. Would understand if did retire though because Cro Cop takes fighting pretty serious and has been really crushed from losing fights before.

Jim Miller. In this month there were two high level potential contenders fighting. Miller is clearly the guy in the division. But the future timeline in the division is.... difficult. I think this is the runndown, Edgar and Maynard fight in May, Guida and Pettis fight in June, Melvin and Roller fight in July, where does that put Miller in March? I know they really want Pettis to beat Guida and do the whole WEC/UFC unification and I expect that scenario to unfold should Pettis beat Guida. I think Miller is the clear number one contender in the UFC though. I think he deserves it.

The Koch KO was pretty glad they showed that. The prelims were okay, Can putting down Elliot was no surprise, Only turned my TV on right at the end of the Barboza fight, that was cool, Nate fight was what I expected it would be and that was not anything special to me. All in all this was a pretty good UFC. I feel liek 8.5 but rounded down and voted 8 due to the end difficult ending I had hoped against. Probably the best of the year so far.

Jones vs Cain at 225 would be good.

Crocop vs Fedor In SF... count on it

Getting a bit carried away with the HW talk, lets see Bones defend the belt a couple times before we fantasize about moving up.

GDPofDRC wrote:

I think the whole any fighter over the age of 30 that gets caught needs to retire rhetoric needs to cool down. Cro Cop is up and down and I thought he was looking up for this fight. I expected him to be beaten by Schaub but he preformed much better than I thought he could and the fight was on it's way to being a 28-28(29-28) draw on my card. But he got caught. The right reminded me a lot of the right that dropped Machida. The next punch though, I would of liked it if he didn't throw it cause Mirko was looking pasta, but he was in destroy mode, in the moment. But to instantly say retire, not after that. Would understand if did retire though because Cro Cop takes fighting pretty serious and has been really crushed from losing fights before.

CC is an undersized striker who has no explosiveness anymore and has been put out 2 fights in a row. He's headed down an Arlovskian path if he moves forward and there's no reason for it

Let's face it...when CC did nothing significant in a 3 round standup fight with Frank fuckin Mir, we knew it was the end of the line

I'm confident in saying Bones is the largest LHW fighter(not the tallest or the guy who weighs the most a day after weigh ins) EVA. He does of course need to cement the foundation of his division dominance by beating all comers. If he is capable of REEM'ing his fitness level though....

Quote :

I think the whole any fighter over the age of 30 that gets caught needs to retire rhetoric needs to cool down. Cro Cop is up and down and I thought he was looking up for this fight. I expected him to be beaten by Schaub but he preformed much better than I thought he could and the fight was on it's way to being a 28-28(29-28) draw on my card. But he got caught. The right reminded me a lot of the right that dropped Machida. The next punch though, I would of liked it if he didn't throw it cause Mirko was looking pasta, but he was in destroy mode, in the moment. But to instantly say retire, not after that. Would understand if did retire though because Cro Cop takes fighting pretty serious and has been really crushed from losing fights before.

I would normailly agree...but this isnt the first time. I was not caling for CroCop to retire after he looked like crap against just about everybody he has faced over the last few years..even his wins. Actually, i've kept saying "this is the fight where CroCop gets it going again". So this is nowhere close to an "instant" or "knee-jerk" reaction to CroCop losing. It's not for me, it's not for anybody who keeps thinking CroCop might be relevant again after being disappointed time and time again by his performance(even in wins, he didnt look very good vs. Al Turk, Perosh and Barry), and it's even not for Dana White who hopes to get him to retire by cutting him. We've all been patient with CroCop slide down the hill and as fans we're tired of watching crap like that embarrasing Mir fight, or getting knocked out by mediocre fighters like Brendan Schuab...now i know it comes down to perception of Schuab..but i'm not high on him and he'll get undressed once he actually dips his toe in the deep end and he'll probably be considered a low middle of the pack fighter in two years. He was not at all impressive in this fight.

Sure, CroCop can keep fighting and i'll keep rooting for him..but i'm a little tired of watching him get knocked out...as a fan. You kind of make it seem like this is an "only as good as his last fight" knee jerk situation where i would agree with you a hundred percent of the time....but for me, it's more of a "only as good as the last 3rd of your career" situation. If he needs the money, by all means...if you don't..cash out because it's only getting worse.

That's the thing, he isn't a top tier guy anymore, few are able to fill that position in any division, especially HW. Most of that division should retire if standards are relevant to his mediocrity to the top tier in comparison I think.

Brendan Shcuab is nowhere near top tier IMO. Maybe it's because CroCop built a legacy AS a top tier guy..actually as one of the best HW's of all time. So, nobody wants to see them go on in mediocrity while newer fans have no clue what the big deal ever was when you are getting KO'd by NFL washouts.

If somebody has always been a gatekeeper...well then, as long as they are a gatekeeper people think they are prime. Middle of the pack, lower pack, etc...but the standard is always different for the greats, am i wrong? As a fan, i don't want to watch CroCop be a lower pack fighter when he was the standard. Nobody wanted to watch Brett Favre limp through last season when he was the standard. Nobody even wanted to watch Jordan be barely all star caliber player(which is good) with the Wizards when he was the best ever. Even Mike Tyson who acted with no regard to his legacy decided "If McBride is killing me, it's time".

I see you don't agree with that line of thinking, but i CroCop is not even middle of the pack anymore, because a middle of the pack fighter gives Mir a better fight...and going on that way can damage careers. Look at Ken Shamrock who was great in his era but most except devout old schoolers treat him like a punchline when nothing but respect should follow the name of Ken Shamrock for his contribution to the sport.

There is a point for everyone and Cro Cops could be now, but I put him over half of the UFC HW division under contract still if he is not brain injured bad after tonight. The division is varied. He's in the 20's division rank wise imo. It depends still, he could hang up the gloves, a lot of guys who have experienced success at the top will not accept from themselves losing that if they don't have to, accept gatekeeper relevancy. If he wants to retire he should. It should not be a decision made by Dana White at all. Anyways, Mark Hunt.

It was like a 4 until Jim Miller, overall 8.4

Cro Cop/Schaub was a early candidate for worst fight of the year until Schaub saved it with a nice KO. It's sad watching Mirko these days, he's slow and barely engages or does anything in his fights. Another late bad KO, I think it's time to hang em up. Funny thing is, even a washed up Mirko was possibly winning the fight against Schuab until the KO. SO nice KO Brendon, but you've got a lot of work to do still, I'm not overly impressed.

Nate gets the win against Miller, but label me unimpressed. He's slowly losing his elite MW status.

Jim Miller put on another great performance. The guy is a beast. He out classed Shalouros on the feet and ground. If only two guys who are just that much better then Jim weren't in his division. Think he should find himself in a one more win and in situation now.

I'm very happy Faber and Wineland put on such a great fight like they did tonight. The little guys never let you down and more people need to see them fight. Wineland hung in tough early, but in the end Faber was too much. He's such a complete fighter, can't wait to see him challenge Cruz.

Bones is like the real "new breed", we've really never seen a LHW athlete like him. He completely dominate Shogun tonight, and his talent and skill are much of the reason for that.

That said, Rashad would have beat the Shogun we saw in the cage tonight too. He doesn't come off long layoffs well, this reminded me of the Forrest fight. Shogun looked slow, was carrying a little extra around the mid section and just didn't seem like Shogun at all. But unless Shogun recieved some sort of injury tonight, I fully expect him to win his next fight.

I know it looks like "who the fuck is going to beat Bones" right now, but I think Rashad and Machida both have the abilities to do so. Rashad has trained with him, has the wrestling to keep it on the feet, is quicker and a better striker. Think he has a solid chance, but I'd still be picking Bones. I think Machida's takedown defense is strong enough to keep it standing with Bones, where his style could give Bones some trouble. Bones still leaves himself open to counters a lot.

Other random thoughts

Koch looked great again, I was a little worried about Koch getting taken down, but knew he light up Rafeal on the feet.

Barboza is sick, though Njokuani came to fight as well. Overall great fight, gald people got to see that one.

Missed the Pyle fight, but was told Almieda got screwed, have to watch it sometime.

Guess Benavidez had a tougher fight then expected with Harry Potter, we'll never see it though

Nice work by Cane, maybe it is just south paws, or maybe it was Marshall.

Nice post LA. I actually hope Miller is already in. He displayed(not just tonight) the skills necessary to have a good bout with both Frankie and Gray, and in the very fresh landscape of the LW division..the HUGE win at LW is hard to classify with certain names moving out of the division, taking too many losses or being inactive. I'm willing to accept Pettis as a #1 contender if he beats Guida...but Jim Miller is 9-1 in the UFC with a 20-2 record overall. I'd really like to see him get a shot.

Would like to see Miller beat a top 10 fighter though before he gets a shot.

I don't think he'll get the shot but i won't compain if he does. What amazes me is he's 9-1 in the UFC and they STILL have not given him a top 10 fighter? It just shows that all these undefeated prospects they put infront of him like Oliviera and Kamal..they wanted him to lose and be a stepping stone for somebody but he keeps winning. I bet they especially hated Jim beating an exciting phenom like Charles.