What can you say... UFC 90 got out of the gates with a bang, but in the end fizzled with a disappointing main event, at no fault of either fighter. As both fighters said in their post-fight interviews, injuries happen and it wasn't how either of them wanted the fight to end after 2 full rounds of a tactical battle.
Here's my opinion on some of the fights:
Sean Sherk VS Tyson Griffin - Great fight! Definitely what we expected out of two fighters that are almost mirror images of each other. Both stocky and powerful, with good hands and great wrestling and scrambling abilities. In the first round Sherk got a few double-leg takedowns that seemed to frustrate Griffin, but once on his back Griffin made quick work to get back up, giving up his back each time. However, Sherk wasn't able to capitalize on getting Griffin's back, and thus resulted in a purely stand up war, but with Sherk certainly taking round 1.
Round 2 and 3 were tough to call, but the judges all seemed to think that Sherk was the unanimous winner. Sherk definitely has the tighter and crisper stand up, always keeping his hands up, throwing very clean combinations, and often landing punches but not really ever hurting Griffin.
Griffin on the other hand had great head movement, often slipping Sherk's combinations, and retaliating with some straight rights and hard overhand rights as well. Griffin also went to work with the leg kicks that seemed more effective than Sherk's. Sherk really made no attempt after round 1 to take Griffin down, probably realizing that once he got him down he couldn't control him on the mat, so it wasn't worth wasting the energy to try. All in all a great fight, but I didn't agree with the judges unanimous decision.
Fabricio Werdum VS Junior dos Santos- Whoa! What an uppercut. Junior stepped in and wound up with that uppercut, which Werdum for some reason seemed to duck his head into. The result, a devistating blow that not only knocked Werdum to his knees where Junior pounced on him with a few fight ending punches, but it also caused quite a cut to Werdum's face.
I'd like to say it was an impressive win by Junior, but it's tough to say when a fight is finished with one punch. I'll still need to see his ground game before declaring that he can make his way up the heavyweight ladder. Unfortunately, Werdum was just the guy to test his ground game. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of Junior, so we shouldn't have to wait long to see how he fairs on the mat.
Rich Clementi VS Gray Maynard - Round 1 wasn't much to write home about as the action was limited. Both fighters spent some time feeling each other out until Maynard scored a takedown towards the end of the round. Takedowns were pretty much the story of this fight, along with some slow but interesting battles for position. Clementi kept things interesting with submission and sweep attempts from the bottom, but Maynard's defense and scrambling was just too good for Clementi to capitalize. Each time they were on their feet the exchanges seemed pretty even, with Clementi showing that he's a true veteran and not letting Maynard get a striking game going, but Maynard consistently "bullied" his way through some nice double leg takedowns to take a unanimous decision.
One more comment on this fight, with regards to the officiating. The ref on this fight was constantly in the fighters ears saying "c'mon guys, work", or "c'mon guys improve position". Even after they had just gotten into the position. Even Joe Rogan seemed a little frustrated making comments about the ref needing to let the fighters work. I understand wanting to keep a fight exciting for the fans, or not wanting to let a fighter stall out a round, but sometimes battles for position take time and are slow to progress, but technical none the less. Often times Clementi worked for a sweep from the bottom, clearly making progress (although it was slow progress), while the ref continually harped on the fighters to work. Certainly it's easier for us to see on TV than for those in the crowd, but refs need to maintain the integrity of MIXED Martial Arts by letting the grappling matches and battles for position progress and evolve, and not jump in too early to stand them up just because it's a methodical battle for position. Just my 2 cents!
Josh Koscheck VS Thiago Alves - You may recall that I picked Alves' as a good bet in this one, and it turned out to be true. It was a great fight as everyone expected it to be. I've gotta give a huge amount of respect to Koscheck for jumping into this fight on two weeks notice. This was a fight that had title implications, and I can't say most fighters would have taken it like Koscheck did, especially given he was already considered to be among the best in the division. Koscheck also showed a huge amount of heart and determination, but in the end it wasn't enough to overcome Alves' takedown defense and leg strikes.
Round 1 saw Alves rock Koscheck with what looked to be a looping (and not especially hard) left hook, however it did get Koscheck right behind the ear. Koscheck went down to his knee, staggered back up, and began to recover against the cage as Alves attacked with a nice kick to the head, Koscheck shot in and attempted the takedown which was not successful in getting Alves to the mat, but was successful in allowing Koscheck to fully recover.
Throughout this 3 round battle, Alves attacked Koscheck's legs with brutal leg kicks. To the point that in the 3rd round Koscheck actually went down due to leg kicks and was clearly adjusting his stance to avoid more punishment.
In the end, Alves clearly won the fight with superior striking and great takedown defense. Congratulations to both fighters for putting on a great fight and showing tons of heart and class.
Anderson Silva VS Patrick Cote- Well... after two fairly uneventful rounds, the fight ended by "TKO" as Cote suffered a freak knee injury as he bounced back and forth preparing to attack. I will say that Cote did a good job avoiding much damage from Silva. In the 2 rounds, Silva landed one hard straight right, a kick to the face and a knee to the face. Other than that, he did more dancing around than attacking.
Cote did his fair share of dancing around too, but as we heard between rounds from Cote's corner, he needed to be "unpredictable" in order to not let Silva plan his attack. Cote did what no UFC middleweight has done before, and that's last into the 3rd round with Anderson Silva.
Although I must make one more point, at the beginning of the 3rd round, Cote flashed three fingers to the camera with a big smile, as though he was saying "I made it to the 3rd round! I made it to the 3rd round!" and his night was complete. I thought it was just extremely odd that he went down with a freak knee injury shortly thereafter. I'm not by any means accusing Cote of faking the injury, but instead just amazed by the irony of it all.
Hopefully these two will get to fight again and determine a true winner, because by my scorecard it was one round each before the fight ended.
