UFC Fight Night 141 was this past weekend, let’s get to the rundown as well as some quick thoughts on Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz 3.
UFC Fight Night 141
GOOD- Li Jingliang stops David Zawada
Zawada hurt Jingliang a lot in the first round, but then Jingliang turned it around and stopped Zawada in the third round. Nice fight and a good win for Jingliang.
GOOD- Song Yadong vs. Vince Morales
This was a solid fight. Nothing special, but it was fine. Had some good action as well as some dull moments but both guys tried hard. Yadong won the decision.
GOOD- Alistair Overeem stops Sergey Pavlovich
Overeem took Pavlovich down and rained down with some brutal ground-and-pound to force the stoppage. Nice bounce back win for Overeem.
GOOD- Francis Ngannou stops Curtis Blaydes
Ngannou rocked Blaydes with a power shot right away and then just kept pounding until he got the win in about 45 seconds. That kind of power is just unreal. This Ngannou is a danger to pretty much every fighter. The frustrating part is that this Ngannou went away for a while, and I have no idea why. I don’t know if it was Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or something but this isn’t the same guy who fought and lost to Derrick Lewis not that long ago. That guy wouldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag but the Ngannou in this fight, he’s something special.
Blaydes was on a good winning streak and he got trucked here. This throws the heavyweight division into chaos. Ngannou had lost two fights in a row before this win, so he can’t get the next title shot. Granted, it’s the UFC but still, I can’t imagine that happening. Does Stipe Miocic get the next shot, even though he lost to UFC Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier in his last fight? Blaydes just lost so he’s out.
This actually works out for the UFC because now they have cover to give Brock Lesnar the next title shot. I mean, no one else has a strong case that makes it clear they should get the shot, so why not? That’s rhetorical of course, as you could list a bunch of reasons why not, but it is what it is. The UFC needs big money fights so this will come together and hopefully we get some clarity in the division in the meantime.
This was a good way to end a nice card.
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Liddell vs. Ortiz 3
Chuck Liddell lost to Tito Ortiz by first round TKO over the weekend. Some thoughts-
1- Tito Ortiz is 43 years old. Chuck Liddell is 48. I know age isn’t everything and some people are able to fight off Father Time for a long while, but Liddell isn’t one of those guys. He looked shot and completely gone years ago. That’s why he retired. Liddell has lost his chin, cardio, and really his whole game. That stuff doesn’t come back just because you don’t fight. I understand the curiosity factor but how anyone could justify to themselves buying this fight is beyond me. Speaking of…
2- This fight was $40. They were talking about doing some kind of Black Friday deal where it was discounted to $20 but some mysterious “contractual obligations” prevented them from doing this. What I’m sure really happened is they got complaints from people because in order to get the discount you had to sign up and create an account at some website and jump through hoops and all that stuff no one wants to do, so instead of being smart and discounting the price for all they figured they would just try to get as much as they could out of people while they could.
$20 is still too much to ask for this fight, but it’s a hell of a lot better than $40. You want to get something like this, a freak show side attraction type fight, down to an impulse buy. That’s the market you want to reach. You want people to say “Hey, I remember watching these guys in high school (or middle school), they’re still fighting?”. I think $10 is a way better price for this, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have paid anything to see this fight. If they had this fight on television, I might have watched, but I’m not paying money. The time spent watching this assuredly horrible fight is payment enough. To borrow a joke from Colin Cowherd, if they had this fight in my backyard, I’d close the blinds.
3- Again, Liddell is 48 years old. Even before this loss, Chuck had lost five out of his last six fights, with the only win coming against Wanderlei Silva in 2007. That’s right, it’s been over a decade since Liddell won a fight. And it’s not like he was losing close decisions. Four of those five losses were by knockout. Which brings me to…
4- Ortiz celebrated this win by doing his little Gravedigger celebration stuff and jumping on the cage and acting like he just won a huge Powerball jackpot. It was so ridiculous and over the top that part of me thinks he did it overboard like that on purpose. There’s no way any sane human being would celebrate so hard after such a turd of a win.
5- After the loss, Liddell was asked about if he was going to retire again. He said, “We’ll see.” Yeah, no kidding, we’ll see. The world just saw (or heard) about how bad you looked, how easily you were defeated, and you just killed off any interest people might have in wanting to see you fight again, but “We’ll see.”
NEXT: DYLAN BOWKER’S RUMBLE IN THE CAGE 60 REPORT
6- Chael Sonnen had a huge tweet storm about this fight, in an obvious attempt to insert himself into a fight with either of these guys. I think he might have been drunk, I’m not sure. One thing I know for absolute certain, though, is that no one has any interest in seeing Sonnen fight either of these guys. Unless they want to bill it as “Who will win between the man Tito just beat in 4 minutes or the man that Tito beat in 2 minutes 2 years ago? Find out for only $39.99!”
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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