Rate UFC 114: Bizarro World

I give it a 7

It was a stong card, but quality wise...the main event was kind of a let down. I always shit on a fight that spends the majority of the time against the cage with no real action happening. The third round was solid but the energy was drained out of the building pretty quick for "The most anticipated fight in UFC history #427".

The Good:

The rise of John Hathaway
The rise of Jason Brillz
The chin of Mike Russow
The Stun Gun takes respect
The derailization of Amir Sadollah and Todd Duffee


The who cares:
Luiz Cane got knocked out again
Dan Lauzon is not ready to fight at a high level.
Nogueira's below par performance. He was definetly expecting something else.
The lost edge of Diego Sanchez
Rashad

The Bad:
Rampage's performance
Todd Duffee's conditioning
Dan Miller's game plan

excuse me, #10 is supposed to mean UFC 100...can't fix it now though...but in before i'm called on it. UFC 110 kicked ass as well.

8, I enjoyed the card alot.

I gave it a 7.

Gotta go to work...will give my breakdown later.

I gave it a 6 because the fights that did go the distance were pretty lazily put together(save for Hathaway and Sanchez) by the fighters. I maintain that Joe Silva cannot forsee the kind of shit these guys will end up putting out when he picks fights the way he does. On paper these fights should have been total barn burners with fireworks left and right, but it just wasn't the case in alot of them. Guillard's fight had a little bit of everything in it's short time, as did Cane/Diabetes but overall I wasn't that impressed.

Escudero and Lauzon refusing to engage for about half of thier fight sucked. Escudero should have to fight Nate Diaz if Nate were still in the division. Lauzon should be cut.

Todd Duffee gassing out wasn't too bad and the only reasons I say that are that he's a big heavyweight and I'm pretty sure he broke his right hand since he started only feinting with his right even when the opening was there. Duffee should fight someone like Pat Barry next.

the Brilz fight was great until the decision, but I do agree it was a very close fight. That was the purest display of Jiu Jitsu vs Wrestling we have seen in a while. Brilz should fight Forrest or even Rampage next.

Hathaway cemented himself as someone the division needs to take notice of last night by battering Diego Sanchez and even stuffing most if not all of his takedowns. Diego isn't a top dog at Welterweight anymore but the way he beat Sanchez definitely should earn him a spot in the top 15. I'd like to see Hathaway vs Swick next.

Rampage vs Rashad was pathetic. Rashad does no damage while stifling Rampage against the cage most of the fight and the one shot Rampage had to finish he didn't try to for some reason. He just layed there and let Rashad up before not engaging a still wobbled Rashad.

Bisping vs Miller went about as we all expected it to go. I don't really have an opinion on it one way or the other except to say that Miller's striking wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be. He got his licks in there.

I went with a 6 also I wasnt overly impressed by the card at all.

I went 7, and it was a bizzaro card.

I had 4 fights I was super confident in. Diego, Duffee, Nog, Cane. I thought for sure that was 4 easy wins, yet I went 1-3, and the 1 win, the one I may have been most sure of, was super close. (Well I guess I was pretty confident in Bisping too)

I may have not been so confident in Diego If I had seen the 2 stand side by side, but conversely I was more confident in Duffee the minute I saw russow.

113 should be the 10, to see this after that is bad, this was a disappointing event overall. in 90 minutes of fighting there was like 5 interesting minutes.

Notice how all the Rampage lovers hated the fight and think this card sucked. I like it.

The main event was a 7 and probably fight of the night. Rashad had his big moment early. Like against Silva, almost got finished in the third. He won all the stuff in between. 7 is generous though because he took away over half of the fight with leaning. But, there were more fights then the main event. Some people might jude an event on one fight, I don't, this event overall was unexceptional.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

Notice how all the Rampage lovers hated the fight and think this card sucked. I like it.

not true, i gave it a 7. That means i thought it was pretty good.

KingsOwn19 wrote:

Wolfgangsta wrote:

Notice how all the Rampage lovers hated the fight and think this card sucked. I like it.

not true, i gave it a 7. That means i thought it was pretty good.

same here. Though im not a page lover, I did pick him, I did think the fight was anticlimatic, but I thought the card overall was pretty good.

I gave it a 7, the main event ruined it for me...not necessarily because Page lost but because after all that shit talking I wanted to see someone get finished.

I'll give it a rather pedestrian 6.

I'm giving it an 8. It was a good card. It had some surprising upsets, a couple real close fights. The only thing I didn't like I was already prepared for. I knew Rashad wasn't gonna go to war with Page, I knew he'd turn it into a wrestling match. And even though I was told I was wrong I knew Rashad's wrestling was better than Page's. I only wish fighters like Rashad would tel the truth to fans about how they are gonna fight. If I was a casual fan I would've been very upset with the main event.

I think anyone who purchased the pay per view and isn't a Rashad fan was kind of upset and maybe even some who are Rashad fans were. I agree the fact that Primetime had Rashad saying things like he was going to put Rampage to sleep and sending him a snuggie and all that bullshit led up to a candle with a wet wick for some. I personally don't fault Rashad for doing what he did in the grand scheme of things but for what it's worth I hope we see a rematch without so much hanging in the balance so we can actually see a little striking between these guys.

Quote :

I think anyone who purchased the pay per view and isn't a Rashad fan was kind of upset and maybe even some who are Rashad fans were. I agree the fact that Primetime had Rashad saying things like he was going to put Rampage to sleep and sending him a snuggie and all that bullshit led up to a candle with a wet wick for some. I personally don't fault Rashad for doing what he did in the grand scheme of things but for what it's worth I hope we see a rematch without so much hanging in the balance so we can actually see a little striking between these guys.

I don't see how rationally one could hate on Rashad because of prefight smack talk. Then again, MMA fans like everyone else usually aren't rational people. Rashad tried to finish Rampage several times, nearly KO'd Page, scored some good GnP in the last round while trying to finish and did what he needed to win. MMA really doesn't need anymore idiots who just clamor for mindless slugfests and get mad and boo when the action hits the mat. This type of mentality should be frowned upon here, not embraced.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

Quote :

I think anyone who purchased the pay per view and isn't a Rashad fan was kind of upset and maybe even some who are Rashad fans were. I agree the fact that Primetime had Rashad saying things like he was going to put Rampage to sleep and sending him a snuggie and all that bullshit led up to a candle with a wet wick for some. I personally don't fault Rashad for doing what he did in the grand scheme of things but for what it's worth I hope we see a rematch without so much hanging in the balance so we can actually see a little striking between these guys.

I don't see how rationally one could hate on Rashad because of prefight smack talk. Then again, MMA fans like everyone else usually aren't rational people. Rashad tried to finish Rampage several times, nearly KO'd Page, scored some good GnP in the last round while trying to finish and did what he needed to win. MMA really doesn't need anymore idiots who just clamor for mindless slugfests and get mad and boo when the action hits the mat. This type of mentality should be frowned upon here, not embraced.

Wha???

You're way over the top on that first punch Rashad landed. Page was off balance and while yeah, it was a decent shot, it wasn't close to a KO. Page didn't even hit the mat. Rashad was never close to finishing Page. Rashad was not impressive, he looked afraid to engage and he really couldn't do much damage to Page when he finally put him on the mat for an extended period of time either.

If they had traded even once in this fight Rashad would've been napping on the canvas. Rashad didn't come into that fight to finish, he came to grind out a decision.

He fought to win. I disagree that being a fighter means getting knocked out or slugfesting or
"trading" with guys who have one shot power. Why should he have to take damage to prove himself in your eyes? I don't remember if he did in the Henderson fight specifically but Rampage has rocked and knocked down with punches every single UFC opponent he has faced. He has legitimate one shot power if anyone south of Carwin has one shot power. Evans knows he doesn't have a super human chin, and therefore in the interests of winning this fight, taking as little damage as possible was priority number 1 in his game-plan.

Was what Rashad hit him with a knockout blow to another fighter not named Quinton Jackson? Very possible. He clocked Rampage flush and sent him across the ring. He wasn't off balance enough to justify what that punch did. After that shot landed, for most of the fight Rampage wanted no part of Rashad's power himself. He had Rashad hurt but once he got to his feet he wouldn't engage. I've not seen Rampage fight like that in the UFC.

I've never seen Rampage out classed like this in the UFC. Rampage before this fight only lost one UFC bout and honestly if Penn got a rematch and Machida kept his belt, he never should have lost that fight at all. Besides Marvin Eastman, every fighter he has faced was firmly a conscensus top ten fighter at the time. Rashad made him look slow, ineffective and one dimensional. That is impressive to me.

I hate Jon Fitch, am a big GSP critic for his almost refusal to finish fights, and I blasted Jose Aldo for backing off on Faber, but I can't fault a fighter for fighting with a brilliant gameplan, outclassing his opponent, and taking as little damage as possible. Especially considering Jackson is the biggest puncher in the division by far, and Evans chin remains some what of a question. I think it's more than obvious he doesn't have the type of chin Chuck, Wandy, Nog, Shogun, Page, Tito, Fedor and others had during their primes.

Let me put it another way ; Evans has a glass chin and still made Rampage Jackson look bad most of the fight. How many other glass chinned human beings could hope to say that against Jackson of all fighters? You're not impressed by that?

LudoCain wrote:

I think anyone who purchased the pay per view and isn't a Rashad fan was kind of upset and maybe even some who are Rashad fans were. I agree the fact that Primetime had Rashad saying things like he was going to put Rampage to sleep and sending him a snuggie and all that bullshit led up to a candle with a wet wick for some. I personally don't fault Rashad for doing what he did in the grand scheme of things but for what it's worth I hope we see a rematch without so much hanging in the balance so we can actually see a little striking between these guys.

Where I was watching the fights, the guy who bought them was unhappy with the card overall and was saying before the main that he hopes this fight actually has some kind of climax. The decision fest night had the whole room generally felling like wise. Even with some decent moments in some of the matches the cumulative product leading into the main had nobody won over yet. The main was good when you got rid of the 7 or 8 minutes of cage hugging but really wasn't enough to push the event in to good territory for anyone. Low expectations, name wise, were at very best met.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

He fought to win.

He didn't fight to win, he fought not to lose.

LOL really now? Come on guys, stop this. So what could or should he have done different?

Wolfgangsta wrote:

LOL really now? Come on guys, stop this. So what could or should he have done different?

Like I said, when he was failing with his takedown attempts he should've backed out and reset. He didn't. The ref forced the issue a couple times only to see Rashad push Page into the cage again and hold him there. Basically, for 2 rounds of that fight he failed at taking Page down and held him against the cage. He wasn't trying to finish or even be active in those rounds. He was trying not to engage by engaging. He sucked Saturday night.

He was avoiding Rampage's strong suit while simultaniously working to take him down and tire him out. So you want him to separate and start trading punches?

Good thing for Rashad you don't coach MMA.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

He was avoiding Rampage's strong suit while simultaniously working to take him down and tire him out. So you want him to separate and start trading punches?

Good thing for Rashad you don't coach MMA.

Rashad: I'ma buy Rampage a snuggie so we can cuddle after I get my rocks off on his leg.