HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC Uruguay

Frank Hyden MMATorch Columnist

Valentina Shevchenko and Liz Carmouche

UFC Uruguay was this past weekend. Let’s get right to the rundown.


UFC Uruguay

GOOD- Enrique Barzola vs. Bobby Moffett

Both guys fought hard, but Barzola did a little bit more and got the split decision. This was a close fight and you could argue for either man to get the win, but I think Barzola did a bit more and deserved the decision. Good win for Barzola.

GOOD- Rodolfo Vieira submits Oskar Piechota

Vieira landed a couple good takedowns but Piechota was able to fight him off for a while. He couldn’t keep it up, though, as Vieira was able to lock in a tight head-arm triangle choke and get the submission towards the end of the second round. Good win for Vieira.

GOOD- Volkan Oezdemir stops Ilir Latifi

Oezdemir battered Latifi and slowly overwhelmed him with strikes. He nailed Latifi with some big hooks that ended the fight towards the end of the second round. Big win for Oezdemir.

GOOD- Luiz Garagorri vs. Humberto Bandenay

This was a close fight, with Garagorri doing a bit more to earn the decision win. This was a pretty fast-paced fight, though it slowed down by the third because these guys are only human. Good win for Garagorri.

GOOD/UGLY- Mike Perry vs. Vicente Luque

Both guys landed some big shots, with Perry landing some particularly powerful shots. I thought Perry did enough to get the decision, with one judge seeing it the same way. The other two judges saw it in favor of Luque, though, as Luque won by split decision. The UGLY comes from Perry’s nose, which was horribly mangled. It looked like one of those Play-Doh noses that gets smushed in. It was pretty gnarly and he had surgery to fix things so I hope he has a quick recovery. A picture of him after the fight will definitely go on the list of gruesome sports injuries. It’s not on the level of Hasim Rahman’s second head or Pawel Wolak’s distorted fact, but in the noses category it’s up there. Nice win for Luque, though I disagree with the decision.

UGLY- Valentina Shevchenko vs. Liz Carmouche

Shevchenko successfully defended her UFC Flyweight Championship in a god-awful fight so devoid of meaningful action that this goes on the list of worst title fights in UFC history, at least in my opinion. They combined to land sixty significant strikes in five rounds. Carmouche landed eighteen. Those are horrible numbers and are the third lowest for a title fight that went five rounds in UFC history.

Sidenote- As pathetic as that sounds, Sean Shrek vs. Hermes Franca at UFC 73 in July 2007 had a total of forty one significant strikes.

Shevchenko is so good but performances like this will kill your marketability. People won’t pay to watch you fight if you’re this boring and dull, ask Demetrious Johnson about that. He had a string of boring and dull fights followed by a string of exciting and great fights to watch, but by then the damage was done. His reputation had been set. I’m sure some of it was his small size but that’s only a minor factor. If you get pigeon-holed as boring, it’s really hard to climb out of that hole. We’ll see what happens in the future, but too many more fights like this and her reputation is set, and that’s not a good thing.

UFC Uruguay: Valentina Shevchenko Octagon Interview

Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank


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