Post Fight Night 21

What an exciting night of fights from North Carolina! Let's start off with Big Country. He is the real deal, and if there were any nay-sayers out there after he won the Ultimate Fighter season 10 competition, they have probably been silenced by now. It took Roy Nelson only 39 seconds in the first round to take out Stefan Struve. Skyscraper's reach is 83 inches and dwarfed Nelson's reach of 74 inches, but this did not make the slightest difference as Nelson rocked Struve with a big overhand right and finished the fight by raining down shots on Struve who remained grounded after being buckled by Nelson. And Nelson handled himself after the win by showing his humor and graciousness by complimenting Struve and jokingly calling out James Toney.

Takanori Gomi was the last Pride Lightweight champion and seemed to be one of Kenny Florian's biggest challenges yet. However, KenFlo stuck to his game plan and looked like a champ in his fight. He threw many jabs (similar to BJ Penn's jabs) to The Fireball Kid's head and landed a vast majority of them. Florian also studied Gomi's game and that showed when he took caution to cover up against Gomi's right hooks. After an impressive and entertaining stand up battle which favored Florian, KenFlo was able to submit Gomi with a rear naked choke. This win brought Florian closer to another title shot, and maybe the third time will be the charm for Florian who has suffered two losses in title bouts to Sean Sherk as well as BJ Penn.

And how can this post be complete without mentioning the power mishap in the Bojangles Coliseum. This was a UFC first, and was a major problem for the event, as the power was cut during the announcement of the Roy Nelson vs Stefan Struve fight. The power could not be brought back fast enough and for the viewers watching on their televisions, Caol Uno's fight against Gleison Tibau was broadcasted (Uno lost in round 1 in 4 minutes 13 seconds via TKO).

UFC 111 Fight Videos

Mark Bocek vs. Jim Miller:




Kurt Pellegrino vs Fabricio Camoes:


Frank Mir vs Shane Carwin:

Georges St. Pierre vs Dan Hardy:
Part 1:


Part 2:

Post UFC 111

It seems UFC fans have developed a theory that fighters are only great
when they have standup wars with their opponents. Dan Hardy, had he
practiced takedown defense, could have lit up fireworks in his title
shot against Georges St. Pierre. The Outlaw's standup is incredible
and could have knocked out GSP. However the champion was able to take
down Hardy at will and utilize his ground game, perhaps his greatest
strength aside from his wrestling. Rush was 100% with his takedown
attempts and was able to attempt a few submissions while Hardy
defended all of them-2 of the greatest moments of the fight was Hardy
getting trapped in an armbar and kimura but did not tap and was able
to fight out of both of the champion's submissions attempts. I was
watching the fights live in Newark and the crown responded negitavely
whenever the fight stayed on the ground. This response by fans
continued post fight on Twitter as Dana White recieved angry tweets
stating how boring the fight was. MMA has many aspects to it and the
ground game is a significant part, and fans need to realize that. The
excitement of a fight should not be measured by the stand up battle as
it was last Saturday. Some tweets included fans stating that if they
wanted to watch a wrestling match they would watch their local college
matches. Well if fans just want to see standup brawls, why not watch
boxing?