Post from: EveryJoe

Koscheck Vs. Thiago: Early Stoppage Or Legit?

I missed the first hour of UFC 95 last night, but it seems that the first hour was just like the following 2 hours.

Josh Koscheck lost in the first round by ref stoppage KO. From what I have read, Josh Koscheck was pretty much running the show until he got caught with a few good hits that sent him to the floor without Paulo Thiago even following up before the ref stopped it. The fans were not happy with this stoppage and I probably would not have been either.

Demian Maia VS. Chael Sonnen: Chael Sonnen loses to a triangle choke in round one. This is Sonnen’s first UFC fight since 2006 (lost to Jeremy Horn at UFC 60) and only his second professional loss in 9 fights. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Chael Sonnen in the UFC despite this loss.

Wilson Gouveia vs. Nate Marquardt: This was an interesting match but Nate Marquardt pretty much dominated the entire fight before the ref stopped the fight in the third giving Nate the TKO by strikes. Nate Marquardt wants a chance at Anderson Silva, but I don’ think he’s really ready for Silva…but is anyone ready for The Spider?

Dan Hardy kept is fight with Rory Markham short and under 2 minutes. He also backed up his word. He talked a lot of trash coming in to this fight and he did knocked Rory out. Markham came in at Hardy with a big right, which Hardy kind of avoided and countered with a huge straight left that put Markham out and on his back. Hardy followed up with two more big hits before the ref stopped the fight. Hardy wins at 1:09 in round one with a knockout punch.

The televised a couple of prelim card fights to which we saw Heavyweight Mike Ciesnolevicz defeat Neil Grove with a heel hook that Grove may be taking some time off to recover from. We also saw Evan Dunham defeat Per Eklund fairly quickly in the first round. Dunham doesn’t look like much, but he took Eklund out pretty easily. Lastly we saw Terry Etim defeat Brian Cobb. This was another fast ref stoppage. I think Cobb would have lost anyway, but the ref was quick to stop this one.

Diego Sanchez defeated Joe Stevenson by unanimous decision. Diego Sanchez played it safe through every round and worked some great combos. He once again proved that he has an iron chin. He didn’t go for the ground and pound that we often see from The Nightmare, but kept it standing and feeding Stevenson with combos. I think Stevenson is relying too much on the guillotine these days and perhaps Sanchez is right saying that he’s not evolving as a fighter.

Image: Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

UFC 95 = Fast Stoppages

Post from: EveryJoe

Sanchez Vs. Stevenson: A Lot Of Respect

• Diego Sanchez has dropped down to the Lightweight class and will be facing Joe Stevenson for his Lightweight debut fight.
• Dan Hardy will face Rory Markham
• Chael Sonen makes his return to the UFC to fight Damian Maia, who is undefeated in the UFC.
• Junior Dos Santos vs Stefan Struve

UFC Fight Night will be aired on Spike TV on February 7th with the following card:

• Joe Lauzon will take on Hermes Franca in the main event fight of the evening. Joe is a good fighter and has a lot of potential…not to mention he knocked out Jens Pulver during a Pulver winning streak.
• Cain Velasquez will fight Denis Stojnic.
• Mac Danzig will take on Josh Neer despite Neer’s recent arrest for drunk driving.
• Amir Sodallah will fight for the first time in the UFC since his win at the TUF 7 Finale, against Nick Catone. This fight was supposed to take place last year but was scratched from the card ast the last minute due to Sodallah having a Staph infection.

The rest of the card may not be aired

• Kurt Pellegrino Vs. Rob Emerson
• Alessio Sakara Vs. Jake Rosholt
• George Sotiropoulos Vs. Matt Grice
• Gleison Tibau Vs. Rich Clementi
• Luigi Fioravanti Vs. Anthony Johnson

Post from: EveryJoe

UFC 95 To Air On Spike TV

Georges St. Peirre has been named the Canadian Athlete Of 2008 by Sportsnet.ca. It’s great to see MMA fighters get the credit they deserve in the world of Athletics. Although most MMA fighters are paid much less than most professional athletes and perform even less, they still deserve recognition as being great athletes. The amount of training, fight-science and overall discipline that goes in to being an MMA fighter, it’s only right that they get the respect they are entitled to.

XFC has inked a deal with ValCom to produce and distrubute 13 one hour episode from pre-existent content to be distributed for cable broadcast. The deal will also see future “High-end” developments for upcoming events according to MMA Weekly.

UFC 95 has been confirmed to take place in London and UFC 96 will take place in Columbus Ohio. Bouts for these events have been rumored but nothing is set in stone quite yet.

With that said, Happy Holidays however you may celebrate.

Post from: EveryJoe

Happy Holidays From Jab And Grapple

Sure it will be a "Highly anticipated fight", but if Silva is going to move up in weight class, why would they start him off against Liddell. Perhaps they want to see if he is just as good a fighter in a higher weight class as he is in the middleweight class.

Chuck Liddell isn’t going to back down from a challenge, especially if he feels that he has something to prove. If he wins, he will be the first person to beat Anderson Silva in the UFC. It could prove to be an interesting fight but I just don’t know where the UFC is going sometimes with odd match ups like this and like last Saturday’s PPV.

Post from: EveryJoe

Liddell Vs. Silva At UFC 95?