By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch Senior Columnist
UFC 321 was this past weekend and featured some exciting action, a lot
of decisions, and a dud main event. Who won and who lost? Let’s get to the rundown.
UFC 321
GOOD- Azamat Murzakanov stops Aleksandar Rakic
Rakic starts off landing some nice kicks before going for a takedown
that he can’t complete against the fence. Murzakanov gets the fight to
the ground for a moment before they reset on their feet. Murzakanov
catches Rakic with a right hand to the chin as he was coming forward
and he’s out. Some follow-up punches on the ground force the referee
to jump in to stop the fight a bit over three minutes into the first round.
Murzakanov improves to a perfect 16-0 while Rakic drops to 14-6 and
has lost 4 straight fights. Good win for Murzakanov.
UGLY- Alexander Volkov vs. Jailton Almeida
Almeida gets an immediate takedown and lays on top as Volkov hits him
with an occasional elbow as the first round ends. The second round
begins with more of the same energy-sucking “action”. The third round
starts with still more of the same. This fight is god awful terrible.
You’d have to pay people to watch this. Almeida almost had more takedowns (counting mat returns) than significant strikes. That pretty
much sums it up. Horrible fight. We go to the judges to render their verdict.
Volkov wins the Split Decision to improve to 39-11 while Almeida drops to 22-4. Moving on…
UGLY- Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Mario Bautista
This was another garbage fight, though it was better than the last fight. I feel like I’m being too harsh but I just can’t stomach two of
these lay-and-pray style fights in a row. This was better but that’s
not saying much. Nurmagomedov was slightly more active but this was
still hard to watch. We go to the judges to render their verdict.
Nurmagomedov wins the decision to improve to 19-1 while Bautista drops
to 16-3 and has his 8 fight winning streak snapped. Moving on quickly…
GOOD- Virna Jandiroba vs. Mackenzie Dern
This fight was to crown the new UFC Strawweight Champion after former
champion Zhang Weili (26-3) vacated the championship to fight UFC
Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko (25-4-1) for that championship
next month at UFC 322. They start off trading stiff strikes until Jandiroba gets a takedown. Jandiroba lands some ground-and-pound
before they stand but she quickly gets another takedown. This is more
like it, as Jandiroba is doing some damage on the mat with her
ground-and-pound, though Dern is defending and doing some attacking of
her own before the first round ends. The second round begins with
mostly the same, as both women are attacking each other with intent.
The third round starts with still more of the same, as Jandiroba is
getting takedowns and doing some damage but Dern is attacking well off
of her back. This is a really close fight as we head to the
championship rounds.
The fourth round opens with some different strategies from both
fighters as they’re tiring a bit. They mostly fight on the feet and they’re both showing toughness and grit to keep firing. The fifth
round commences with much more striking as both women try to establish a clear victor. They’re too tough to finish, though, so the fight ends and we go to the judges to render their verdict.
Dern wins the decision to become the new UFC Strawweight Champion and
improve her record to 16-5 and has won 3 straight fights while Jandiroba drops to 22-4 and has her 5 fight winning streak snapped.
Questionable win for Dern.
UGLY- Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane ends in a No Contest
Aspinall was looking to defend the UFC Heavyweight Championship for
the second time here. Both men are trading hard strikes and Gane is
probably on his way to winning the first round until he sticks his
fingers knuckle-deep into Aspinall’s eyes like he’s freaking Moe.
Absolutely ridiculous. Aspinall can’t continue, of course, because he just got eye-gouged to an extreme degree. Then some people in the
crowd are booing. Boo Gane, he’s the dope who stuck his fingers straight out like he’s damn Palpatine getting ready to Force Lightning
someone. Then you have your usual and sadly expected trolls or people
who don’t know anything about fighting saying that Tom quit. That’s absurd. Then Dana White says that Tom didn’t want to continue at the
post-show press conference. Dana’s just salty that his former boy Jon
Jones (28-1, 1 NC) pulled a total duckjob and slinked away into a fake
retirement just to avoid fighting Tom and risking defeat.
I wasn’t surprised to see a known liar and cheat like Chael Sonnen saying that Tom should have kept fighting. He’s had some of the worst
takes in the history of MMA (among fighters), which takes away from
the accomplishments he did have in his career. There were some other
fighters who were either trying to defend Ciryl or question the
veracity of Tom’s eye injury, which is completely absurd.
This should have been a DQ loss for Gane and win for Aspinall. Gane
very well could have won this fight but an illegal move ended it. Have
a rematch as soon as possible and maybe Gane wins that. But this should have been a loss.
There’s no valid fighting technique that involves sticking your fingers straight out at your opponent’s eyes like you’re a wizard
getting ready to cast a spell. It was absurd for the legendary former
ONE and UFC Flyweight Champion Demetrious Johnson (25-4-1) to try to
defend Gane by saying that it’s your natural instinct to put your hands up when someone is coming at you but then demonstrate what he
means by putting his hands up, with his fingers pointing upwards.
That’s not what Gane was doing.
All right, I’m done ranting for now.
Refunds should be handed out for this terrible show. Woof.
My new epic fantasy book is out. It’s called Kingdom of Zarias: The End’s
Beginning. The exciting epic fantasy series Kingdom of Zarias
returns with the 4th book in the series. After the harrowing events of
Book 3 the residents of the Kingdom of Zarias continue on their paths.
Serena Summers continues to learn and grow as a fighter, desperately seeking to become stronger before she loses anyone else in her life.
Daniel Summers discovers new parts of the world that open his eyes to
just how little he truly knows. A new hero, Lamar Abeers, arrives to join the fight against evil. Plus, Zach Summers, Tiana Highsmith, and
Xavien Ekens continue their journeys with their friends, and a new
ruler of Vhaharen is crowned. The world has found a little peace.
However, that peace is only temporary. In a shocking act of violence, the monstrous villain Galren strikes from the shadows and changes the
world forever. This is Book 4 in the series. There’s lots of action, magic, and monsters in the Kingdom of Zarias. It’s like a tabletop
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places. If you’re interested, I would greatly appreciate it if you would check it out and support me.Thank you very much, have a good day.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at
hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
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