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UFC 89 (10/18) event results
By Zach Arnold | October 18, 2008
Reports: AOL Fanhouse | USA Today | Sherdog | MMA Junkie | MMA Mania
ESPN has been running result spoilers on their newsticker (on both ESPN & ESPN2 channels) for UFC 89, so you didn’t even need to be on your computer to find out who won what fights.
On the boxing side of things, Bernard Hopkins beat Kelly Pavlik by unanimous decision…
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
-davis did his job
-lyttle and taylor had a great fight
-soukoudjou was disappointing for gassing, but wasn’t unexpected
-carwin looks like a monster but hard to tell when fighting cans
-bisping has great skills, but against better opponents, doesn’t really have the power to finish. kinda sad for him to admit he was going for the UD
-i hope we can all forget about vera now. he was the one saying he’s gonna bring it and whoops ass and be exciting but he’s always the boring one. “don’t believe the hype, only believe what you see”
1. Griffin
2. Jackson
3. Evans
4. Liddell
5. Silva
6. Jardine
7. Rua
8. Machida
9. Cane
10. Sokoudjou
Disappointing.
Sokoudjou has so much talent but no gas tank.
Vera has no aggression. He got Jardine hurt but didn’t take his chances. He deserves the loss.
Bisping played it safe because he feared Leben’s power. This guy will never be able to handle Silva.
No killer instinct tonight. All in all, a disappointing UFC. At least it’s free.
1. Machida
2. Jackson
3. W.Silva
4. Rua
5. Hendo
6. Griffen
7. Liddell
8. Feijao
9. Lil Nog/Arona
10. Evans
^^^^You may have missed about a dozen fights that have occurred over the past two years.
Sokoudjou’s problems have nothing to do with technique or his stamina. He is caught between 2 coaches — one a fighter turned politician (who happens to be a winning Olympian) and the second one of the best fighters of ALL TIME in Hendo, coaches who are legends in the sport, while he is trying to live up to being a fighter, something which he has hidden from his family for some time. Sokoudjou has great technique and power, but must work out very personal issues which are deliberately holding back his ability to fight with a clear mind.
As far as the Pavlik fight — the man moved as though he was in quicksand — the entire fight was underwhelming, as was the UFC — I found more thrills at the local beach front dives.
Citizen:
I’d say the issues you listed pale in comparison to the fact that as soon as things stop going his way he looks for a way out of fights.
Soko is experiencing in MMA what a lot of young baseball players experience. All young hitters can hit fastballs, when they first come up and no one knows “the book” on them they see fastballs. Some rookies start tearing it up. Then the league realizes this guy swings at balls in the dirt or can’t handle a breaking ball and the kid never sees another fastball. Soko burst on the scene with some dramatic KO wins against guys who all they knew about him was “he has a Judo background”. His first couple fights in PRIDE were so fast you couldn’t scout him. Now people have figured him out some. He can’t fight inside and he isn’t very good on the ground despite the Judo background. That and he turtles up every time he’s in trouble.
I thought the HOPKINS fight was quite entertaining. I don’t really get the MMA fans general fascination with Pavlik in a sport that for the most part they scorn. Pavlik got a lesson from a true master of the sport, a rough lesson I might add. Hopkins made him look like an amateur, and showed what masterful boxing is about. Hopefully Kelly learns from it and comes back a more complete fighter.
Vera lacks any sort of killed instinct. It’s very annoying to watch.
Bisping is impossible to watch on TV and score correctly. Sometimes it looks like he might be slightly losing a round, then you look at their faces, and Leben was all cut up. Not sure why, but his style doesn’t exactly come across as dominating like it does ringside.
Overall, a decent night of fights. A good appetizer to the real event, UFC 90.
I think Brandon Vera’s got to seriously shake things up if he’s going to salvage his career.
Last night, he looked nothing like the well rounded well oiled machine that he was in building up his 8-0 record.
Sure, he didn’t build it at the expense of world beaters, but at least 50% of his victories were against reasonably solid opposition.
And he demonstrated that he could win in a variety of ways.
But, then came Tim Sylvia which led to this 1-3 skid that Vera finds himself in now.
With the Sylvia loss being a very forgivable one in that he was facing a much larger, much more experienced two time UFC champion. A situation that I don’t believe he was quite ready for.
Now, coming off of that loss & the hand injury that he suffered during the course of it, I don’t believe that his braintrust did their job very well in accepting a bout with Fabricio Werdum. And it cost them when he got caught in a bad position & the ref cave him a quick hook.
Which led to the drop to 205 which appears to have been a poor decision all around.
Sure, he can make the weight, but he’s not the same fighter after the cut. He’s a listless shell of the fighter that he used to be.
Yeah, he’s a small heavyweight & he’s going to be at a size disadvantage on many an occasion during his career. But, that hasn’t hurt a couple of future Hall Of Famers in Fedor & Randy Couture too much.
So, as you may have gathered, I’m advocating a return to the heavyweight division for Vera. That & some new faces in his camp.
Vera looked in shape for once, and not only that, he looked like the smaller man at 205. He has no place for success in the heavyweight division except to KO bums and shot fighters, which is what he had actually accomplished there before Big Tim put him in the fence and raped him for 15 minutes.
Vera may be giving up size at heavyweight, but there may well be more cans up there for him to beat up. There just aren’t a lot of easy fights at light heavyweight, and a lot of those guys cut from walking weights that are significantly bigger than his even there, so he could still be giving up size.
I can definitely see the argument that if he’s going to give up size either way, he should at least go where the talent isn’t so that he can win.
“Bisping is impossible to watch on TV and score correctly. Sometimes it looks like he might be slightly losing a round, then you look at their faces, and Leben was all cut up. Not sure why, but his style doesn’t exactly come across as dominating like it does ringside.”
I think a lot of the time he barely slips punches or he blocks them real close to his head, and as he steps out of range, he gets a little off balance. Combined, it gives off the impression that the punch connected solidly, when in reality it did little to no damage. Forrest did the same thing quite often in his fight with Rampage.
I took a couple things from this night. First off, Anderson Silva is a bad dude. Bisping couldn’t even phase Leben with flush punches, while Silva knocked him out almost casually. Also, I can’t believe Vera was ever a successful heavyweight, looking at how small he looked next to Jardine. I can’t imagine how ridiculous he’d look next to guys like Carwin and Lesnar. Speaking of which, that’s a fight I would love to see sometime down the road.
Vera may be giving up size at heavyweight, but there may well be more cans up there for him to beat up. There just aren’t a lot of easy fights at light heavyweight, and a lot of those guys cut from walking weights that are significantly bigger than his even there, so he could still be giving up size.
There’s plenty of cans at 205. It comes down to whether or not they want to protect him, and I doubt they do at this point. Another point of comedy is what this does for the Filipino market. I bet that suddenly Dana White has trouble securing venues because its all corrupt or something.
First and foremost I thought this UFC Highly entertaining, Marcus Davis showcased his stand-up skills against a very capable Paul Kelly. Must admit that Brandon Vera needs to up his aggression… you can see the talent but he lacks the conviction although lets not forget he just fought a great fighter in Keith. Paul Taylor should have won in my opinion and did a fantastic job against a very tough Chris Lytle. Sokoudjou started off great but needs to work on a game plan for his body type, when he has that sorted he will be an great contender at 205. Totally agree with all the previous comments on Bisping… Chris Leben is fantastic to watch but bisping out boxed him with his footwork… to convince me he needs to work on his KO’s against opponents like leben and the such.
By the way great to read some decent comments on MMA… such a refreshing change then most of the forums.
Machida
Liddell
Jackson
W.Silva
Evans
Griffen
Franklin
Hederson
Jardine
Werdum
Uhhh, Jonas, are you ranking Fabricio Werdum in your top ten 205ers? You’d need to lop off one of his legs for him to make that.