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UFC 126 (2/5 at Mandalay Bay); Jon Jones says he and Rashad Evans won’t fight each other
By Zach Arnold | February 5, 2011
Dark matches/preliminaries
- Welterweights: Mike Pierce defeated Kenny Robertson in R2 in 29 seconds by TKO.
- Light Heavyweights: Kyle Kingsbury defeated Ricardo Romero in R1 in 21 seconds by TKO.
- Bantamweights: Demetrious Johnson defeated Kid Yamamoto after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Lightweights: Paul Taylor defeated vs. Gabe Ruediger in R2 in 42 seconds by KO.
- Featherweights: Chad Mendes defeated Michihiro Omigawa after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Lightweights: Donald Cerrone defeated Paul Kelly in R2 in 3’48 with a choke sleeper hold.
Main card
- Bantamweights: Miguel Torres defeated Antonio Banuelos after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Welterweights: Jake Ellenberger defeated Carlos Eduardo Rocha after 3R by split decision.
- Light Heavyweights: Jon “Bones” Jones defeated Ryan Bader in R2 in 4’20 with a choke hold.
- Light Heavyweights: Forrest Griffin defeated. Rich Franklin after 3R by unanimous decision.
- UFC Middleweight title match: Anderson Silva defeated Vitor Belfort in R1 in 3’29 by KO.
Notes coming out of the show
Rich Franklin may have lost, but Forrest Griffin paid the physical price. According to Bryan Alvarez, a broken foot and a strained right biceps. Never an easy day in the office against Rich.
The domination of the marquee Japanese fighters was illuminating. Omigawa’s impression about Chad Mendes was right — a guy who plays the position game and isn’t the most brutal finisher in the world. However, he had no answers on how to stop Mendes and Chad just beat him up with elbows to create a nasty eye cut that had everyone grossed out. As for Kid Yamamoto, he will never get a chance to fight Urijah Faber now. UFC had one shot of doing it and they passed up on it. Demetrious Johnson is really opening some eyes (he trains with Matt Hume at AMC Pankration).
Who’s left for Anderson Silva?
Bones Jones will face Mauricio Shogun on 3/19 in New Jersey for the Light Heavyweight title. Rashad Evans will take some time off due to a knee injury he suffered. Evans said he suffered a severe MCL tear last Wednesday in wrestling practice (after he got ‘blindsided’). Rashad is expected to face the winner, but he may get an interim fight (a rematch with either Rampage or Forrest?) in the mean time. Jones vs. Shogun will help create some momentum for a New Jersey that, according to Dave Meltzer, had average or below-average momentum for ticket sales. (Seattle’s Fight Night show with Tito Ortiz, however, has well over 10,000 tickets sold and momentum is off the charts for that event. Tito’s still a draw with casual fans.)
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 62 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Pretty excellent card. Hopefully they show some of the prelims, since I’d rather watch at least two of them over Jake Ellenberger’s perennial showing of wrestling and bad cardio. Would watch but I’ll be out of the country.
they should put cerrone vs kelly on the main card instead.
it’s weird seeing the yamamoto and omigawa on a ufc lineup.
PPV worthy card. Doesn’t get much better then this. Shocked there hasn’t been a preliminary show announced for this one yet. Must have something to do with the UFC negotiating a new contract with SpikeTV…. It’s a shame too because I would love to see most of the undercard as well.
Hoping they can get Kid, Mendes and Cerrone on live TV.
Yep, very solid show, hopefully the Yamamoto and Omigawa fights make the prelim show(which hopefully will be announced soon).
The Cerrone-Kelly fight is the only other fight that has televised prelim written all over it.
If they air the Ruediger fight instead of what might just be a featherweight title eliminator, or KID’s debut, i’ll freak.
Both light heavyweight bouts should be dandies.
Looks like Yamamoto vs. Johnson is gonna get left out of the prelims. Mendes is an ex WEC commodity, and so is Cerrone so those are definately getting televised.
Not much to complain about here. Great card from top to bottom.
Junkie just reported this.
Really sucks not being able to watch Kid fight.
Oops… I missed your comment. Just posted the same thing below.
The fact that they have a prelim show means we will see more fights. And that means a better chance of seeing Kid Yamamoto either on the prelim show if time allows or during the PPV if time allows.
No prob Bob.
I think it’ll need a violent finish either way to be shown. Hopefully that happens anyway.
Best card in a long time. Great main event and three more really interesting main-card fights.
“We’re definitely, you know that’s the mark of true friendship is, you know, somebody can really just tell your friend like pretty much whatever and (they’re) not going to get mad at you. If Jorge told me like, hey, you’re old and slow and you’ve lost a step and it’s time for you to hang it up, then I know he’s really not, he wouldn’t be saying something like that to hurt my feelings. He would be saying something like that to me specifically because he was looking out for my best interests.”
I’m guessing Rich doesn’t try to give the same advice to Jorge, or Jorge really just doesn’t listen to anyone. Even his close friends.
Good point. Considering the beatings Gurgel absorbs, I wouldn’t take his advice on anything.
Donald Cerrone vs. Paul Kelly and Chad Mendes vs. Michihiro Omigawa will be on the SpikeTV Prelim show.
Sort of surprised they are showcasing Mendes instead of Yamamoto. Either way, I’m happy they are having a prelim show. Good chance of seeing most of the fight now.
They will push Cerrone until the cows come home. I used to like this guy, but maybe that’s just because he’s only a scintilla less of a d-bag then Jamie Varner.
I’d prefer to see KID fight, but based on the performance of all the highly touted J-MMA fighters in the cage, maybe it’s best we don’t.
Side note: I was thinking about this the other day – if you placed money against every hyped J-MMA guy who came over in their U.S. “debut” how much money would you have made/lost (e.g. Gomi, Shogun, Aurelio, Shaolin, JZ (ignoring the K1 card), Herring, Omigawa (1st run), Uno, Sokoudjou, Nakamura, etc.)? I’ve got to think it’s a small fortune.
Kid- Johnson is gonna be on Facebook everyone. If you guys didn’t already know.
Picks:
Pierce tko over Robertson- I see Pierce as a better version of Ellenberger. I’m not quite sure why he’s the curtain jerker while Jake is on the main card.
Romero sub Kingsbury- I think Kyle might be able to pull this out, but going with the “more proven” commodity. I’m kind of surprised that Romero is the underdog though.
Johnson dec. Yamamoto- I can’t get the fact that Kanehara outwrestled Kid out of my head. I know this is a better weight class for Kid so he could prove me wrong, but IMO the knee problems have just slowed him down too much.
Ruedigar sub taylor- I changed my mind on this today. SO that means Gabe will probably be KOd in the first round….
Chad Mendes tko 3 Omigawa- Better wrestling, better conditioning, readjusting to the cage, Gaij’s list on high profile JMMA flops,… Mendes wins.
Kelly dec Cerrone- I think the overconfidence of Cerrone will get him in trouble in this fight, or maybe I’m just hoping it will.
Torres sub Banuelos- Banuelos has better wrestling, and might be a little fast. But I don’t think those two things will be enough to get him out of Las Vegas with the W. I think Torres’s length tells the story of most of the fight until a scramble on the ground nets him a sub by choke.
Jones tko2 Bader- I think he’ll blow through Ryan just like he has his past 3 opponents (yes he smashed Hamill). Maybe Ryan can land a game changer on the inside, I just don’t see that as particularly likely.
Ellenberger TKO Rocha- Meh…
Forrest Griffin dec Franklin- Two of my favorite fighters going at it. I think Franklin wins the early part of the fight, but the size advantage helps Forrest pull away down the stretch.
Anderson TKO Vitor- Vitor has never come through in a big title fight (Freak glove accident with Randy aside). I don’t see him coming through here either.
Going back on something I said always ruins picks. I’m letting who I want to win influence me.
Kid by tko 1
^^^
Punches himself in face.
I could be off by alot but for some reason the close we get to UFC 126 the more i’m leaning towards Vitor. For some reason I just got a weird feeling that Anderson is going to make this personal and end up walking into something and get ko’d. But who knows, I haven’t exactly been hitting my predictions when it comes to Silva fights.
My picks….
Vitor Belfort – Anderson Silva is going to start showing his age, just like he did with Sonnen. And something about the way Silva and Belfort were talking on the countdown show makes me think that Silva is worried about the speed and power.
Rich Franklin – Despite Griffin being bigger…. Franklin is smarter and that will be the difference.
Jones – I want to pick Bader, but I just can’t. I don’t think Bader is dynamic enough to beat up Jones. But I would love to see a Bader win.
Ellenberger, Torres, Cerrone, Mendes, & Yamamoto are the rest of my picks.
This is a pretty awesome card on paper. I should order this one, because I doubt there will be a better one (all of MMA in general) for most of this year.
Big hit for JMMA in the rankings.
There fights aren’t even close. What amazed me was how small Kid looked even at Bantamweight. His opponent looked small in his last WEC fight and I thought he could fight at Flyweight. Yet Yamamoto was basically the same size.
They don’t cut weight properly. They can’t defend against the takedowns properly.
The only Japanese fighter worth anything at this point is Yushin Okami.
This is also why I laugh when DREAM or Sengoku have half of the Featherweight ranked guys. It’s beyond biased. The best guys are in the UFC. Japan is finished.
What about Hatsu Hioki? But I do agree with you otherwise.
I have said Hioki in the past, but after all we have seen of Japanese MMA Fighters lately, I really want to see him fight in the states first before he gets the stamp of approval.
But he certainly is one of the only others besides Okami that could get a mention.
I think what you say is more true than not true, you know?
Jonny Bones is going to smash Shogun.
In my opinion, this win elevates Silva above GSP, and maybe even above Fedor. I think that the case can easily be made for him to be called the best ever.
Fedor is below either of those guys. He lost his last fight. It wasn’t a decision robbery, he tapped. He does not belong in the discussion of the very, very top guy until he racks up some credible wins again to build himself back up.
Right now the lb-4-lb guys are Anderson Silva, GSP, and Jose Aldo. I don’t think Fedor will be up there again. Top ten lb-4-lb for sure, but not top three or so.
I mean I think Fedor can be top ten lb-4-lb again. He isn’t right now.
No f’in way is Aldo there yet. Have you learned nothing about the 145 division? We know nothing about these guys and who’s who yet.
Good night of fights. That was a…..weird KAYO win by Silva. Who the hell gets KO’d by a front snap kick? It’s funny because front snap kicks really aren’t designed for higher than the solar plexus. You lose power throwing a kick like that high. But Silva did it. You can see it had power behind it.
Kind of reminiscent of Manny Pacquiao still punching hard UPWARDS when he fought and beat Antonio Margarito. It’s just something else…
He must do it alot. That is his right high kick in UFC Unleashed 2009.
That was all Muay Thai fighters’ high right kicks in UFC Undisputed 2009 (remember, all fighters had a striking style [boxing, kickboxing, or Muay Thai] and a grappling style [wrestling, BJJ, or judo] and no one had their own movesets or anything like that. Only differentiating stats and game model. EA Sports MMA did pretty well at fighters having their own movesets and fight styles). I have seen quite a few fighters throw front snapping kicks high like that, but to kayo someone with it? Can’t saw I have. Either great power, great technique, or great luck on Silva’s part. I would say a combo of strength and luck. And the fact that Belfort just stood there and took it without even attempting to block it.
I might have seen Remy Bonjasky kayo a guy or two with a kick like that but that was him jumping at an opponent while doing it, adding to the power. Like a flying knee or Superman punch. But standing still? Can’t say I have. I would like to be proven wrong though (wouldn’t be surprised if I was wrong).
Chuck, some fighters had their own special moves. I can think of Silva’s front kick, Nogueira’s takedown from the clinch, and Liddell’s overhand right.
Just did a Google search, and yeah some fighters do have “signature moves” exclusive to them. I have the game, and I never freaking knew that. Damn! Thanks for pointing that out klown.
Interesting night of fights. Some very good stuff and some very bad stuff. The fights that needed to deliver ended up delivering.
1) Evans might be stuck in contender status for years if Jones wins the belt and he is unwilling to fight his teammate.
2) They are talking about Silva/GSP if GSP wins at 129. I just don’t like that fight. I’m sure it will do big business, but GSP really shouldn’t be moving up in weight classes. And it does screw over Okami…. Then again a Silva/Okami could put everybody to sleep…. So who knows….
3) As I said above, Japanese MMA is finished. Both guys were Top 5 Japanese fighters in their weight classes and they looked horrible at the UFC level.
4) I could live without the Facebook stream. Heck, I could live without any MMA streaming online. It’s never great. You can’t DVR it. Many times the picture quality stalls every 10 seconds and is choppy. The picture is never high enough quality which makes it hard to see even the most simple details. Dana White thinks the future is online. That might be true if the entire internet infrastructure changed and speeds greatly increased. Not going to happen in this next decade.
5) Miguel Torres turned into the next GSP. Which isn;t shocking because they share the same coaches. Horrible, just horrible way to play it safe in a fight. He is going to stall his career as nobody is going to want to see him fight like that ever again. GSP can get away with it because he is a star. Torres can’t….
6) Franklin at 36 is likely near the end of his career….
7) Jones mentally broke Bader. Bader looked to basically pull guard before he got submitted.
8: Once Griffin heals up, I think he put himself back into the mix with that victory. I don’t think he will ever win the belt again. But he is at least a contender again and will give the division more depth.
There it goes. Jones and Evans made a promise NOT to fight each other. Truly an annoying feature of UFC.
It’s not just UFC fighters. It’s across the board in MMA. Babalu refused to fight Mo Lawal for the Strikeforce light heavyweight title because they are stable mates ad buddies.
Jon Fitch put this issue in perspective in an interview a few years back. He mentioned it’s hard for stabel mates to fight eachother because it gives both guys an unfair advantage. They spar with each other, so they know what to do against each other. They can’t spar with each other if they are set to fight, can they? So one guy has to leave that gym and go elsewhere until after the fight. Or do the two fighters go to the same gym at different times of the day? It’s definitely deeper than good buddies not wanting to hurt each other. At least on Jon Fitch’s side.
Honor, friendship and solidarity truly annoys you.
Well, almost all of my friends are pretty annoying, maybe you’ve got a point there.
Gotta agree with everything you said. Even though I really don’t want to believe that the Japanese scene is dead, but I would be a naive fool if I didn’t admit to it.
What’s the over-under on Rich Franklin fighting in Strikeforce sometime next year? Especially if he loses again. I could see it. Especially if the guys at Zuffa try to talk him into retiring.
I think Franklin retires a UFC fighter. He’s not the type of guy to drag things out like Couture or Liddell. At least I hope he wouldn’t. He’s going back and forth between wins and losses lately, so I don’t see him getting cut anytime soon.
The guy who could go to Strikeforce is Tito Ortiz. It’s one of the negatives of competition. The UFC might hold on to him longer and let him get beat up even more until he completely loses all market value. The reason why? Because they don’t want SF to get their hands on him.
And Ortiz has already shown he is willing to stick around despite being completely shot…..
But it’s also a positive to competition because if a guy gets let go, what then? Go to wherever else is willing to take said fighter, even better if it’s the second biggest fed. Competition is a double-edged sword for sure.
I agree about Franklin, he’s kind of a homebody now.
Which is cool but also kind of a shame because his best chance for a “rebirth” is to leave the nest and see the rest of the world like Diaz, Santiago, etc.
Franklin will be with Zuffa for the rest of his career. Like Chuck & Matt Hughes, he was one of the guys who stuck with them during the lean years and never complained. He was the ultimate ‘company man’.
Not only will Rich never be cut by the UFC, he will get a cushy front office gig when he retires.
Just as important for Franklin these days as he gets older – he’s not really a serious draw anywhere and won’t demand money from other promotions when his contracts come up for renewal. He might as well stay in the UFC and continue to get high profile bouts.
I response to your (4 comment about Streaming being a problem…Its a problem in the US. But in Countries like Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, or France (Central European in general) there connections are far better than US\’s crappy connections. While I was living in NL, for the price of DSL like Qwest internet or Cable modems you get ADSL which gives you 1.5 mb per second most of time. Never lagged not one bit while watching streams. US is truly set backwards when it comes to Internet connections. Dana White has it right, but he might be catering to International Countries doing this.
Jon Jones steps up in competition, and the fight is a one-sided beat down. It’s getting repetitive. I wonder if the bookies will make him the underdog next month.
He should be. He’s the challenger going up against not only the titlist but a well credentialed one.
My prediction on what the betting odds will be? 2-1 in favor to Shogun. That close.
Nope, they made Jones a favorite. Hot fighter lighting the world on fire vs a champ coming off injury who looked very human just a few fights ago (Coleman and Griffin).
Not to mention those were also fights where he was coming back off the very same injury/surgery.
I really don’t see the problem if Jones wins the belt because if he keeps winning like that, he’s going to jump up to Heavyweight, where he belongs. He made Bader look small and has a longer reach than anybody at HW.
Jones is awesome, but can he really compete with huge guys like Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin? Or other big and talented guys like JDS or Cain Velazquez? I can see Jones beating every other heavyweight in UFC though. Maybe even Carwin, as long as Carwin doesn’t connect with any huge punches.
He’s not that big.
Bader is stocky and jones is tall and long.
Moving up to HW would be stupid because he’d be much smaller then those gargantuas AND lose his speed advantage.
He’s not a stupid.
I agree that Jones will eventually wind up at HW, but it is not going to happen for a while. He’s got a gigantic frame, but he still needs to fill out quite a bit and that process will likely take a few years.
Demetrious has always trained with Hume, he’s a coach at AMC Pankration.
Lots to take in after UFC 126…
First off Evans getting injured after waiting all this time for Shogun to get healthy is crazy. I have no clue what to think of Shogun vs. Bones it could be a war or a one sided beatdown. At this point i’m still in shock over how quickly everything went down in the LHW title picture.
Forrest looked great, good to see him return to the guy who choked out Shogun and kicked the crap out of Rampage and stop being the brawler. Forrest is alot better than people give him credit for but sometimes he’s his own worst enemy hopefully he’ll continue down this path and make another title run.
Rich is a warrior but he was too small against Forrest but I still see him being competitive for a while longer even i the sharktank that’s 205.
Bader looked pathetic, he seemed to have no gameplan or gas tank I know Bones is good but he’s not that good.
Ellenberger is another guy who looked like crap even though he won he’s not going to be in Fitch’s league with performances like that.
Torres on the other hand looked very good, I don’t get the critics of him the guy was too wild and got exposed because of it. Now that he’s actually using his reach and boxing he presents alot more problems for guys than he did before when he was the wild guy getting into brawls.
I’d like to say I told you so or whatever but it’s been known for years that people have vastly overated japanese lighterweight fighters. The fact that it’s still going on just goes to show why I stopped taking rankings seriously years ago.
And finally way to go Cowboy, he’s finally learning to become the all around mma fighter that he can be. UFC LW’s better watch out because Cerrone is coming and he’s going to be making alot of noise in the coming years.
\”Bader looked pathetic, he seemed to have no gameplan or gas tank I know Bones is good but he’s not that good.\”
Are you sure about that? Because he looked impressive and I hate to use the term that media continues to use, but his method of getting out of situation is unorthodox. Such as his reversal into a near back mount.
You were right, Bader had no gameplan because it was probably thrown out the window he realized how athletic Jones was.
Exactly.
Lol @ sherdog saying Vitor is on “hold” and there is no shame in getting Daniel-san kicked into Bolivia.
Not that I want Vitor to be ashamed of himself or anything, but we just saw what I’ve been saying for months:
Vitor hasn’t changed.
He KO’d the KO’able Lindland and had a few other minor triumphs recently, but he’s still the same Vitor.
Way too flaky, tentative and frozen in time to ever be a serious contender again.
Not since 1997.
Hendo would have had a much better chance to beat Silva in a rematch IMO.
Yes he flaked in the Shields fight, but its no secret that he’s twice as dangerous when he’s motivated.
He would have been a LOT more motivated for anderson then Shields.
When I saw the scuffle at the weighin I thought for a sec that Vitor might have get pissed enough to actually have a chance.
But then when he started whining about what a “good guy” anderson was I knew it was already over.
I did enjoy seeing anderson getting booed though.
🙂
I’ve never liked that dude!
I’ve always thought he was a jerk and its reassuring to see that I’m not the only one who notices it.