WSOF 24 took last Saturday night on NBCSN. Let’s get right to the rundown.
WSOF 24
BAD/GOOD: Magomed Bibulatov vs. Donavan Frelow
This was for the inaugural WSOF Flyweight Title. This was also a very uneventful fight, overall. There was decent enough action, but none of it really amounted to much. Bibulatov won the decision, as he controlled the fight throughout. This was average or solid at times, but you knew that Bibulatov would win in the end. Just kind of there.
GOOD: Vinny Magalhaes submits Matt Hamill
Hamill dropped Magalhaes early but then took the fight to the ground and got tapped. It was that simple, and that quick. Magalhaes is an extremely dangerous and high level opponent, and Hamill was crazy to go to the ground with him. He should have just forced him to get up over and over again. He didn’t, though, and he paid for it.
BAD/GOOD: Nick Newell vs. Tom Marcellino
The first round was good, but it sucked after that. It just turned into a complete and utter dud. After that first round, things fizzled so quickly that you basically forgot the first round happened. Just not a good fight at all.
UGLY: Nick Newell retires and the WSOF blows it
Newell announced after the fight that he was retiring. WSOF didn’t even show that live, which is bad enough. Then, they returned from commercial break and don’t mention that. That’s so dumb, and I just don’t get it. It’s certainly newsworthy. It should have at least gotten a mention on-air. Newell won several fights for the company. I don’t know, this just strikes me as a dumb move on their part.
GOOD/BAD: Blagoy Ivanov stops Derrick Mehman
Ivanov defended his WSOF Heavyweight Title here; The fight wasn’t all that good, though. It was brutal and bloody, but there was also plenty of lulls. Ivanov was in control throughout and he finally put Mehman away in the second round. Mehman was bleeding like crazy so if you’re into that you probably liked this fight.
UGLY: Jon Fitch vs. Yushin Okami
No surprise that this fight completely and utterly sucked. There’s an expression used often that something is so bad it’s good, like “The Room” or the Adam West “Batman” TV series, but that most definitely doesn’t apply here. This fight was horrible in every sense of the word. I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch this live. I turned the channel and never looked back. I knew exactly what was going to happen, extreme boredom. I recorded it, though, and watched it on fast forward. Even doing that, the fight still sucked.
Fitch won the decision, like that matters. I don’t know what this accomplished, other than producing a candidate for worst fight of the year/decade/ever. It doesn’t tell us anything about these fighters that we didn’t already know. I also think it’s dumb that this fight was the main event over a title fight. That’s just wrong on principle. Regardless, I’m just glad this event is over.
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