UFC 117 Thoughts (SPOILERS)

Ok, first of all, the card was very nice. There were some fabulous displays of striking, wrestling, submissions, and just plain heart.

Roy Nelson, Ultimate Fighter 10 Winner, went up against Junior dos Santos in a Heavyweight match-up and, although Nelson was mostly outmatched, he stood toe-to-toe with dos Santos and never gave up, forcing Santos to win by decision. He took a hell of a beating and I tend to agree with Joe Rogan that Nelson should probably lose his gut and drop a weight class. That kind of power and toughness in the 205 division would be amazing, not even considering that he has a black belt in BJJ.

UFC Hall-of-Famer, Matt Hughes went up against Ricardo Almeida (student of Renzo Gracie, whom Matt Hughes recently defeated). Almeida sought to avenge his Master's loss (man, I love the sound of that-- it's so old school kung fu movie), but his attempts were frustrated when Matt Hughes choked him into unconsciousness in the first round. Looks like Hughes might be making another rise through the ranks.

Clay Guida fought Rafael dos Anjos in a Lightweight bout, defeating him via a submission due to Anjos sustaining a jaw injury during the fight. Amazing fight, by the way.

Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves went to war, but Fitch dominated with an amazing display of wrestling to win via unanimous decision.

The Middleweight Championship fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen was very suspenseful. Honestly, Silva didn't seem himself for most of the fight. When he was on his back (Sonnen is a VERY good wrestler), Silva made hardly any real attempts to sweep and took to mainly throwing short strikes from the bottom. Now, it may be, as Silva said at the end of the fight, that he had a rib injury that slowed him down for most of the match, or it may be that he was lulling Sonnen into a false sense of security so he could slap that nasty triangle on with 2 minutes left in the fifth round. Whatever the case, Silva is still the Champ and I very much would like to see a rematch with a healthy Silva.

I didn't get a chance to watch any of the prelims, unfortunately. For the most part, though, I'm excited to see the level that many of these cards are at recently. Everything is high-level. People are doing new things all the time-- the sport is still evolving and I'm glad to see that. In the UFC events to come, we'll get a chance to see people like James Toney (an amazing boxing Champ) make the transition to MMA, along with other athletes from other sports. How this will affect the game, if at all, I'll be excited to see.

I'm gonna attempt to throw another workout up here tonight and perhaps that Jack Hanma steroid rant, but we'll see. In any case that's all for now. Until next time, good luck and train hard!