UFC 157 Thoughts

–The biggest worry going into this fight was that it was going to rsemble Rousey’s bout with Kaufman. For those that didn’t see that fight, it was a 54 second affair, with Rousey easily taking Kaufman doing and working her armbar. But the fight with Carmouche, I feel more than delivered and was probably her best fight (along with the Miesha Tate one). The fact that we had Carmouche sneak and take Rousey’s back, to work a face crank made it feel competitive. It was like one of those great, old Emelianenko fights where the Russian would be put in a vulnerable situation (Hunt, Randleman, Fujita, Rogers). Then before you know it, Emelianenko would be knocking them out or ripping their arm off. That face crank looked tight, but Rousey shook her off. Before we knew it, and just 11 seconds before the bell rang, she got her tap out. Great fight, exciting main event. It really did feel special and Carmouche did far better than I was expecting.

–It was a bit dull, a true let down of a fight. I gave Machida the fight, I thought he won clearly but it wasn’t very fun. The highlight was that awesome, slick trip Machida busted out at the end of the first frame.

–This was vintage Faber. He loved to work his ground and pound from inside his opponent’s guard back in the day. This felt like an old Faber WEC title defense. Menjivar is awesome and hasn’t been tapped out since 2003 at welterweight. Faber looked amazing in how he transitioned to the rear naked choke. Seeing how Faber destroyed Bowles and Menjivar, I think Faber is going to join that list of “best UFC fighters to have never won a UFC title.”

–McGee hasn’t been much fun for me, I think he’s one of the more uninteresting TUF champions ever. Not as bad as Amir Sadollah but not far from it. But he had a fun fight here against Josh Neer. Lots of good brawling, good pace. Neer surviving those body shots at the end of the first was pretty damn cool. Agreed with McGee winning.

–The UFC welterweight division is totally wacky right now. The division of a few years ago with GSP, Fitch, Alves and Koscheck seems so far removed. We still have GSP at the top, but now we got Hendricks, Condit, Diaz, Maia, and others that we didn’t expect. Where does this put Lawler? He was an underdog and a lot of people weren’t even giving him a chance. Glad to see he proved them wrong, that was pretty neat to see an upset like this. I hope he continues to win. Imagine seeing Diaz vs Lawler II at some point?

–Schaub defeated Johnson and it wasn’t much to write about. Nice to see Chiesa get the choke against Kuivanen.

–The Dennis Bermudez vs Matt Grice fight was really awesome. I honestly thought we could get a draw since I thought Grice edged out the first two rounds, while the last round was a 10-8 round for Bermudez. But I’m cool with the scoring. Bermudez unleashed a huge beating on Grice in that final frame, I don’t know how Grice survived that. Incredible fight, an early fight of the year candidate.