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Videos: Heat-up for UFC 92 with Forrest Griffin & Rashad Evans
By Zach Arnold | December 19, 2008
Around 25,000 views for each in only two days:
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Unlike UFC 91 which had a bad undercard on paper, this event is stacked on paper. Really looking forward to it.
Deep down, I hope Okami puts on a great performance and they show it during the main telecast. Don’t think it will happen, but perhaps it will be a late X-Mas Present.
I’m probably more excited for this fight than really any other fight all year. I know that sounds crazy with all the huge, star-studded main events we’ve seen (Liddel/Sliva, Couture/Lesnar, so on) but I think this one really is the most interesting bout stylistically all year.
For Rashad, and granted you never know for sure, but I’d assume he’s going to want to either stand with Griffin and wait for an opening to land a big knockout shot, take him down and try and ground and pound him, or just pick away at him with strikes, takedowns, and ground and pound to theoretically get a decision win or if lucky get a TKO. And truth be told, that’s worked incredibly well for Rashad in the past. But with Griffin, for one, we know that not only is his chin really solid, but he can also recover from really devastating blows almost immediately. We also know that Griffin can not only survive a brutal ground and pound assault but scramble out quickly and without blowing a lot of energy, and that’s been with fighters with far better ground and pound than Rashad. Above all that, Griffin’s leg kicks may just be the best in the entire light heavyweight division which have proven to completely ground and slow his opponents, and Griffin has really shown to be incredible at making his opponents work for all five rounds.
So while I’d like to say Rashad has this one, not just because of his abilities but also as a huge fan of his, I think Griffin is just the kind of fighter that can give him fits and test his cardio and will.
Maybe more on the subject at hand, but man UFC is great at putting those video packages together.
While there’s no way that Quinton Jackson should be fighting at this point with his pending criminal charges and his mental illness (what if Jesus talks to him for a third time and he goes on a week-long fast for a third time?), I’m looking forward to the Griffin/Evans and Nogueira/Mir fights very much.
Gonna be a hell of a show. I think it’s really important for Jackson to be fighting. Fighting keeps him away from the crazy stuff, for the most part.
A little off topic, but the UFC is not so quietly signing a lot of young Heavyweight Prospects. Really building up the division from the ground floor. It should really pay off in a year or two when many of these prospects get the experience.
Could we actually have a fun UFC Heavyweight Division to watch (minus Lesnar fights which tend to be entertaining).
I’ve already expounded at length about how I really think that the UFC Heavyweight division has radically improved this year.
Couture leaving for a year might have been the best thing to happen to heavyweights in years.
Symbolically, this fight represents the emergence of a new generation of fighters. In a division stacked with all the best LHWs from years past, like Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson, Wanderlei Silva and Shogun Rua, we’ve got two TUF fighters in a championship fight, and the winner will legitimately be considered the uncontested #1 fighter in the world for the 205 division.
It’s amazing how far they’ve come, and we’ve had a chance to witness most of their development.