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UFC 3/21 Broomfield, Colorado (1stBank Center)
By Zach Arnold | March 21, 2010
Note from 3/15: Because Versus is owned by Comcast, Comcast Sportsnet channels aired the “Countdown to UFC” preview show on Sunday night. I watched it and came away impressed with Jon Jones. I came away with the same impression of Brandon Vera that I always have — he talks better than he fights. I am most interested in watching JDS vs. Gabriel Gonzaga and I thought the preview show did a good job of highlighting that fight.
TV: Versus
TV start time: 9 PM EST
Dark matches
- Light Heavyweights: Eric Schafer vs. Jason Brilz
- Welterweights: Mike Pierce vs. Julio Paulino
- Heavyweights: Brendan Schaub vs. Chase Gormley
- Welterweights: John Howard vs. Daniel Roberts
- Light Heavyweights: Eliot Marshall vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
- Lightweights: Clay Guida vs. Shannon Gugerty
- Middleweights: Alessio Sakara vs. James Irvin
Main card
- Heavyweights: Cheick Kongo vs. Paul Buentello
- Heavyweights: Junior Dos Santos vs. Gabriel Gonzaga
- Light Heavyweights: Brandon Vera vs. Jon “Bones” Jones
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 77 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The main card is stacked. I like Jones, JDS, and Buentello (maybe) to win (Kongo has no discernible skills but is 10x more athletic than Paul is.
On the undercard, Mike Pierce will always hold a special place in my heart for almost beating Jon “Human Ambien” Fitch, an event that, if it had occurred, would have hopefully removed Fitch from all main cards on future UFC shows. So close, but yet, so far…
Odd that its only got three fights on the main card. The fights are really good for a versus card but damn, 3 fights!?
I assume they’re expecting at least 2 out of 3 fights to go the distance. But the undercard is stacked enough that they can pull 2 or 3 fights out if we get quick finishes.
Kongo-Buentello has a very good chance of being the absolute drizzling shits on the level of Gonzaga-Jordan, but the other two fights are good free fights. And I hope Jones destroys Vera.
I can’t recall the last time I didn’t enjoy a Paul Buentello fight, and for all his shortcomings, Kongo is usually pretty exciting when not facing wrestlers.
Too bad that they have Buentello booked already. Would have been a good opening opponent for Toney.
They will be showing more then 3 fights. So I have read. They will be filling in the remaining time with the prelims. No complaints about this great card.
Which forum poster gave you that information?
That’s pretty standard practice with Zuffa no? The WEC card Saturday had 7 fights aired I believe.
I think Irvin-Sakara will get bumped up.
Solid card.. I like the odds on the Buentello-Kongo bout, +325 is good value for Buentello.
This card surpasses a lot of PPVs in my opinion. I’m very excited about the main card fights, and I’m also looking forward to Sakara-Irvin.
Strictly speaking, Sakara is a top ten middleweight for beating Leites, who holds a win over Marquardt. It’s one of the most tenuous examples the system generates because both fights (Leites-Marquardt and Sakara-Leites) were won by controversial split decisions. The ranker in me is hoping Sakara wins so I won’t be forced to add Irvin to my MW top ten!
I don’t think Sakara would be top 10 at 145.
It’s now been confirmed that Irvin-Sakara will make the main card.
Great card, especially for the price!
All heavy hitters and no lay-and-pray artists on the card – that’s what I like to see.
Vera is a nice step up in competition for Jones, who is truly the most exciting fighter in the UFC right now. Vera is so tentative and rarely commits to a combination anymore…I can see his passive approach being a detriment as Jones storms in for a quick finish. R1 TKO (with Vera complaining afterward that he was OK to the referee).
JDS is a badass and if GG stands with him (which he likely will) we’ll have a re-run of the Carwin fight. One clean shot will drop GG, leading to a ground-and-pound finish in R2.
Buentello always looks solid, but a hungry Kongo will come out swinging for the fences. I can see a R1 win for Kongo after he drops Buentello with a big shot.
I’m expecting Buentello to take an Al-Turk level of beating
Great news for us that have DirectTV………Versus is back on the air.
The real big fight here is Dos Santos v Gonzaga. A decent win for Dos Santos and there is no reason he shouldn’t be right in title contention.
Why the lack of faith in Buentello? I think he has the skill and exoerience to beat Kongo. I predict fight of the night and a win for Paul.
Your card is missing one fight:
-Duane Ludwig (19-10) vs. Darren Elkins (9-1)
Kongo’s got a lot of holes, but unfortunately Buentello is a striker and can’t exploit any of them, and as far as striking goes, there’s a fairly large difference in ability. Buentello’s a middle of the road striker that can knock out scrubs (but not very tall grapplers), whereas Kongo is one of the best in the division. Don’t forget that he TKO’d Hardonk.
I’d be mildly impressed if Buentello makes it out of the 2nd round.
I really think Kongo is overrated as a striker. He is really stiff and doesn’t move well at all. I think Buentello will get the better of it on the feet and Kongo will take him down and beat him. I think it will actually go to decision.
nice call
I predict a temporary injury stoppage that is not allowed in the rules followed by repeated takedowns by Kongo, and ultimately I see Buentello tapping to strikes.
Jon Jones is the future of the division. I don’t see any of the current guys beating him. What he is doing is at a completely different level. Much like Penn at Lightweight.
He looks extremely promising to me, but we’ll need to see how he conducts himself in a gutcheck fight, one where he’s hurt and has to overcome it and gut out a win. (At least, imo)
Who’s the guy to give him a gutcheck fight?
You’ve been following fights long enough to know that it will almost certainly happen. He’ll come in not feeling well, the moon will be full, something like that. Anything can happen. He could get caught with a monster punch.
Don’t overdo it on him just yet. I think the guy is all-world too, but I’ve been around long enough to know that people tend to get carried away on the next great thing all too often.
I love how you’re the first to bitch about over-hyped fighters or fighters getting too much credit based on crystal ball gazing (e.g. Mouassi)…but you’ll gag on Bones Jones…because he eked out a win against Bonner, got dq’d against Hamill and beat Vera??
Handing over the mantle b/c of a win over Vera – someone who was as much or more insanely overhyped as anyone in mma and failed to come anywhere near living up to it. Vera’s not a top tier fighter, proving it for the umpteenth time and now you’re crowning Jones?
I think Jones has tons of potential for sure…but this is hilarious.
I sh!t on people for ranking fighters too high who don’t deserve it. Like Gegard Mousasi’s biggest win at LHW being over Renato Sobral and him now being a Top 5 fighter in many lists. Or Alistair Overeem’s biggest win in the last 3 years being over Paul Buentello and now he is in many Top 10 lists. I wouldn’t rank Jon Jones in the Top 10. And I never claimed to here. So my tune hasn’t really changed. You are mixing up two very different things. One is how to rank fighters. The other is just discussing a fighters true potential.
Watching him fight, it is easy to see how great of a talent he is. He is tall for the weight class with a huge reach. He has tons of speed. Power in his shots. Great body movement. A grappling style that throws guys completely off. And he is serious about the sport and is putting all of the right coaches in his corner.
This guy is the real deal. It’s the same stuff people could see in GSP and Penn when they were young in their careers. You could tell from a mile away that they were future champions.
Call 45 out if he says that Jones is the current #4 LHW. That’s 45’s only criticism of Mousasi, the ridiculously high rank for beating scrubs.
For now Jones really does look like the future of the division. I really can’t see anyone not getting taken down at will by him. He did with ease what Couture had a lot of trouble doing, and add on 85 inch reach and the fact that he’s 22, and you must have blinders on to think this kid won’t be a beast.
Gotta agree with Jones being the future of the division. Him and Mousasi. Couture was able to get Vera down maybe once in their fight. Vera was taken down within the first minute by Jones. The guy has a surreal way of fighting that it just seems like he’s going at a different speed than his opponent. Same with guys like GSP, Mousasi, etc..
You’re both right – I conflated the two thoughts, forgive me it was late last night and I’m sick as well.
I can totally get on board with thinking Jones has a shining bright future, him and Mousassi both do as the future 205 rulers. But again, I’m just not ready to crown him (or Mousassi) based on who they’ve beaten quite yet.
Vera is (was?) so vastly overrated, that beating him isn’t exactly the biggest achievement…but it was a good stepping stone in the gatekeeper sense for a 22 year old with miles of upside.
Among Lesnar, Mir, Carwin and Velasquez, I see Dos Santos eventually emerging as top dog. A match against Cain is sensible and could happen soon if both have their hands intact. I predict Dos Santos by 1st Round TKO.
Kongo is in a funny spot with his spotty record. Perhaps a fight against Nogueira is in order. It gives Nog a chance to submit the lanky striker, or alternatively, allows Kongo to lift himself out of gatekeeper status by knocking down another veteran.
You’d have to be blind not to be very impressed with Jones, but let’s keep it in perspective – his highest ranked opponent at LHW so far is Bonnar! (I don’t have Hammill or Vera ranked at 205.) Since he’s young, there’s no hurry in building this guy. I’d put him on the slower path, which the UFC has done with JDS. How about Jones vs Bader?
Now that Sakara has strung together 3 wins in a row, let’s see him step up in competition, against one of the better mid-tier MWs. Match with Cote for some fireworks, or test him against the winner of Palhares-Drwal.
I watched a little of this. The Kongo fight was a complete waste of time even fast forwarding. Dos Santos and Jones picked up good wins. Dos Santos is closer to a title because his division is a complete mess. Meanwhile, Jones is in no rush whatsoever to get to a title shot and shouldn’t be. The UFC dominates the 205lbers as far as promotions go and should take it nice and easy. Put him in with a big ol wrestler next like VMat.
I’d like to see Jones vs Couture.
I think Kongo vs Nog is brilliant matchmaking.
Not sure what they’ll do w/ JDS. He’s the guy I’d like to see against Lesnar the most. I’d love to see him vs Velasquez, but that would remove one potential title contender. Whereas at this point Cain can just wait to be #2 in line and fight the Lesnar/whomever winner in the Fall or get the June shot if the Mir/Carwin victor is hurt.
You could do JDS vs Kongo, then Cro Cop vs Nog rematch.
Today is one of the few days of the year when a sports fan could ask you, “Hey, how did Gonzaga do yesteday?” and you would be completely correct with either of these answers: “They lost to Syracuse by 22 points” OR “He lost to Junior dos Santos in the first round.”
Unreal. Barnett gets rocked twice by Mighty Mo. Then he starts winging kicks with his shoes on (why is that allowed?). He lands a sick, sick karate-style front snapping kick that catches Mo smack in the balls with the heel of his shoe. One of the worst groin shots I have ever seen!
The doctors surround him with towels and fondle his balls, then bring a stool and sit him on it. He repeats over and over again, “I can’t”, but it seems like he’s being pressured to continue, and voices are audible saying “take rest, take rest” to him in English. Waaay longer than 5 minutes pass. It’s almost 10 minutes at this point and Mo is just writhing in pain. If this is how it looks – if Mo is being pressured to continue against his will – this is worse than embarrassing, it’s just wrong.
Barnett is allowed to walk over to Mo’s corner and joke around, saying, “he can kick me in the balls back!”
Eventually, Mo returns for a perfunctory 30 seconds, almost rocks Barnett again before being taken down and tapping.
Sad, sad, sad.
While that fight was a total mess and a joke Barnett wasn’t really “rocked” in the sense of the fight was close to being finished. He got buzzed for sure, but his senses were always with him and he continued fighting.
That being said, Mo was super gassed and Barnett did not look too good here. He couldn’t take him down, wasn’t getting the best of the standing and didn’t finish the fight until after he crushed his cup. So to summarize: Mo with all of 4 mma fights and two weeks notice, gave Barnett plenty of trouble and made him look somewhat pedestrian. Barnett probably shouldn’t be a top 15 HW at this point in time.
I love seeing Vera get his overrated ass beat so I was very (vera-y?) happy with the show. Now will you cut this failure already, UFC? No, they’ll probably let him develop anorexia or a crack addiction to shrink down to 185 with our luck.
I have no clue what Gonzaga’s future is. Maybe a Nogueira fight? I sure wouldn’t put him against Kimbo.
Irvin is cursed. Period.
Not shocked Kongo beat Buentello the way he did. 1 and 1/2 dimensions is greater than 1 dimension skills. They need to cut both of them IMO.
Neither Vera, Kongo or Buentello will be cut. Buentello can give them a good show opener KO which they love, Kongo is their gatekeeper until we can figure out what JDS, Velasquez and Carwin can do and then the weakest of the bunch will gatekeep, and they love Vera beyond all logic so I don’t see why they’d fire him now.
Just a pure guess on my part, but I think we’ve seen the last of Buentello in the UFC cage.
I have said the same thing of Chris Lytle and Chris Leben several times. UFC loves big dumb strikers and will give them 10x the chances fighters with real talent will have.
Yeah, but in Buentello’s case he got totally dominated, provided very little offence and the fight itself was far from exciting.
I think Buentello will be cut. He looked horrible and now has no value outside of the UFC that could come back and haunt them. He was beaten up badly by two of their mid level Heavyweights.
I think JDS is the best HW prospect of the entire triangle of him, Carwin and Velasquez. Sh*t I’d love to see him against Brock. Gonzaga looked like a hairy turd, he looked really soft and slow.
And frankly I think out of all the UFC HW’s, he’s the guy that would give Fedor the biggest run for his money…he’s starting to take on a bit of a Cro Cop circa 2003-2006 PRIDE aura. Dude is scary.
I was impressed by his movement and patience were quite good last night. You just knew once he started throwing, he was going to land with accuracy and big power.
Gonzaga should have worked the takedowns harder.
Gonzaga thinks his striking is way better than it really is and he just looked slooooow…I doubt he could have gotten JDS down if he wanted to and if he did he would have likely gassed himself out.
That said, impressive performance by JDS – another test passed with flying colours.
Its interesting to see how many of the current UFC prospects are guys that were basically just sitting on the market and were picked nearly at random to lose. Dos Santos and Jones were both brought in to take Ls and give guys the UFC was more interested in at the time good looking wins on TV. Mike Pierce is kinda in that situation too.
It’s no coincidence. If the UFC wanted to feed their guys impressive wins, they wouldn’t choose touted prospects with near undefeated records to go against them.
Their logic goes something like, either the established (but typically middle of the pack) fighter gets a nice win against someone with a good looking record, or you’ve got a new player in town. It’s how you infuse new talent into a division. Feeding a guy can after can to artificially raise his value is so boxing/Pride.
Its not like those guys were touted prospects though. Both were heavy underdogs – Jones was a late replacement and over +500. You look at how they approached Carwin and Brandon Vera; those are guys that were touted prospects and got kid gloves to start with.
I think IceMuncher’s point is that the UFC basically lets it’s fighters sink or swim. They might try to push fighters like Vera, but they don’t really protect them. They are required to prove it. Something that boxing and especially Strikeforce now avoids like the plague. They love to get athletes not truly tested and then throw them into a big main event or title fight.
Watching a guy like Bobby Lashley given absolutely scrubs to fight on extremely short notice seems to be the SOP lately with Strikeforce. They are going to do it again for the April 17th show.
Most of the guys that feed on bums do it outside the UFC; this is true. I won’t argue it. But to pretend it doesn’t happen is silly. Does anyone think that Trigg/Koscheck wasn’t about getting Koscheck an easy win over an old name? Not really the nobody prospect/contender thing I’m talking about; Gonzaga/Tuchchchchchchsher is a good example.
I can see that argument for Dos Santos, since they probably had high hopes for Werdum. But I can’t see how that applies to Jones. When was Andre Gusmao touted as a hot prospect for the UFC?
Gusmao was considered a pretty solid prospect once. Jones was an unheralded late replacement coming in on 3 weeks notice.
Trigg wasn’t considered washed up when he fought Koscheck. It wasn’t until his defeats to Koscheck & Serra that he was really considered washed up. And Chris T wasn’t a prospect but a live underdog for the Gonzaga fight.
The only guy the UFC has really babied in recent memory is Michael Bisping. That had a lot to do with their UK expansion. Him getting guys like Elvis Sinosic was a little sickening.
Chris T had a terribly inflated record of 15-1/16-1 going into that fight. He was clearly positioned as a prospect by his management. Trigg was very well worn and I don’t think anyone was really surprised by how that fight went. Same with Baroni’s fight with Sadollah.
(I did think of another prospect/contender fight in the midst of this; Matt Veach/Frankie Edgar. Did anyone really give Veach a shot at winning?)
Just because a guy isn’t a .500 fighter doesn’t mean that he’s not being positioned to take losses. Jonathan Goulet’s career in the UFC is to take KO losses, like the one he’s obviously going to sustain against Marcus Davis, who needs to be rebuilt as a contender for the hundredth time.
Trigg was absolutely seen as cannon fodder for Koscheck. His grappling was negated by Josh’s insane wrestling skills and he certainly wasn’t as good of a striker. I don’t remember anybody thinking Trigg wasn’t going to get destroyed to move Koscheck closer to that WW title shot he’ll be getting in 5 more years. I do remember people saying he should be a good safe fight for Matt Hughes to fight for the 3rd time.
Just watched the DREAM 13 videos that were posted on BE. Overall, not much of a big deal from this event.
Barnett looked bad. I don’t know if he is cycling off or perhaps just a long lay-off, but he looked bad.
Bibiano vs. Hansen once again shows that Hansen is not really a champion level fighter. The guy practically dropped down 2 weight classes and still couldn’t win the belt. Never understood the hype behind that guy.
Cole looked to be in decent form. He was actually getting outstruck by Maeda before the KO, but it was a nice head shot….
Anyone know the legality of the Buentello timeout for finger repair?
It was almost as bad as pausing a fight right when a fighter gets rocked, just so that he can clear his head and continue on. I’m pretty sure Kongo would have murdered a one-handed Buentello.
– Irvin gets punched in the eye and stops fighting. There is no recovery permitted and it’s a TKO.
– Buentello dislocates his finger and calls time-out. He’s allowed to rest while he’s losing, pop it back in, and restart the fight.
Herb Dean seemed to be giving a favour to Buentello, who had already been fouled during the round and this also gave him an opportunity to rest. I’m guessing Dean realized the error of his ways when he allowed Kongo’s knee to the head (“gaming the system durrr durrr”).
In the interest of disclosure, I had Kongo to finish within 1.5 rounds.
I’ve been told that the fight was paused because of an equipment malfunction: Buentello’s pinkie came out of the glove or something along those lines. If that’s the case, then the time-out was warranted and legal.
“I’m guessing Dean realized the error of his ways when he allowed Kongo’s knee to the head (“gaming the system durrr durrr”).”
The knee by Kongo was legal. There is a video up of McCarthy explaining the rules to Frank Shamrock, where he explicitly stated that a blow is legal if the fighter being struck drops to a knee before being hit.
“Gonzaga/Tuchchchchchchsher is a good example”…
Agree with this Alan, but I disagree about Trigg. Granted on paper it was a crappy style matchup for Frank, but he was still coming off a good little streak and was previously ranked top ten in a higher weight class.
Dream 13 > ufc
Both cards were kinda lackluster, IMO, but I support the non-PPV MMA.
LOL @ not thinking the UFC builds people up.
June 8th….
Rampage’s Greatest Hits coming out on Blu-ray and DVD….
Weird release for a non-champion who is having issues with management.
Is that the first single fighter compilation DVD? That could be a huge revenue stream. I always thought they dropped the ball by having that Ultimate Iceman DVD being just a documentary. If they included even just 10 Chuck fights, it would’ve been their highest selling DVD ever. If they included his whole career, I think it would be still selling well to this day.
I think it is the first fighter compliation DVD from the UFC. I hope the featured fighter gets a portion of the DVD sales.
I’ve always thought the UFC should have done these types of DVD’s along with Title History ones as well.
The Ultimate 100 set where they actually included all of the fights in their entirety is great.
I’m pretty sure they pay DVD royalties on events so Rampage should get a nice check off of it.
If I was selecting the format I’d include
-vs. Sakuraba
-vs. Satake
-vs. Randleman
-vs. Liddell 1
-vs. Wanderlei 2
-vs. Arona
-vs. Liddell 2
-vs. Henderson
-vs, Griffin
-vs. Wanderlei 3
They have so much fight footage between both their own collection and prides’. They should do Wand next for the mere fact he KOd Jackson twice.
Already been done. Google “Wanderlei Silva: Fighting for PRIDE”
Unfortunately it probably sold 127 copies in the U.S. With the UFC brand behind it and his name recognition being 500x higher with the North American fan, it will probably sell like hotcakes.
Exactly what I was thinking.
The A-team comes out on June 11th. It would appear that UFC is looking to capitalize on Rampage’s increased mainstream exposure.
UFC fighters do not get DVD royalties.
“I’m guessing Dean realized the error of his ways when he allowed Kongo’s knee to the head (“gaming the system durrr durrr”).”
The knee by Kongo was legal. There is a video up of McCarthy explaining the rules to Frank Shamrock, where he explicitly stated that a blow is legal if the fighter being struck drops to a knee before being hit.
Woah, reply button, this is new.
“UFC fighters do not get DVD royalties.”
Bingo. And they also don’t get video game royalties. Even WWE, which treats its employees, er, I mean “independent contractors” like meat puppets, gives its talent DVD royalties and video game royalties.