Tiny Little Gloves

So tonight, my girlfriend kindly offered to transcribe my hoots and yelps during the UFC’s all-heavyweight main card, so that I could get on with swearing at everybody. A fine idea, undone by Josh Rosenthal: at whom I unleashed such a torrent of foul language that she simply refused to continue. 

Look: I’m all for letting fighters fight, but when someone’s face is pissing blood like a sprinkler and they shake their head like a sneezing dog while they’re talking to the fight doctor, you might want to take the decision out of their hands. You’d at the very least want to keep an eye out for an opportune moment to stop the fight, instead off letting them take a career-shortening series of face-punches from a barely-functional half guard. I’ve watched that stoppage five times and every time I think I’d have jumped in three punches earlier - I can’t believe there isn’t more outrage about this elsewhere. I was actually gearing up to have a go at Yves Lavigne for letting Shane Del Rosario get his face elbowed to a paste, and this stoppage was worse. Elsewhere on the card, my notes simply say ‘Fuck’s sake, Mazzagatti,’ presumably a reference to him letting Jamie Varner grab the cage for balance while he pounded out Edson Barboza. Not, all in all, a great night for refereeing. 

The one referee that didn’t have much of a job to do was Herb Dean. In-keeping with his job as the nicest man in the face-punching business, JDS seemed almost polite in the way he’d blast Mir with belly punches and occasionally stiff-jab him in the face throughout a fairly one-sided title fight. Even the little hammerfist he ‘finished’ with was almost an afterthought, more like a little nod to the Dean Machine: ‘You’re stopping it, right? You are? Definitely? Great.’ JDS looks like a monster at the moment, easily the best puncher out of the heavyweights and seemingly impervious to being taken down. Something struck me as weird about his stance and I’ve finally worked out what it is: he stands in a really wide version of an orthodox boxing stance, left leg quite far forward instead of being squared off like most MMA fighters. It makes him basically invincible to blast doubles, and though it’s relatively easy to scoop up a single, his balance in defending such things is insane. I hate to think how much he’s drilled hopping around on one leg, but love to see that there’s an archetype out there for traditional boxers to copy. 

What else is there to say about that card? Johnson/Struve didn’t go long enough to tell if Struve’s learned to fight like the giant he is yet, but Johnson needs to take some BJJ lessons if he wants many more outings in the Octagon. My girlfriend saw that armbar coming before he did, and she was mostly-focused on my excellent spiced chicken salad. The traditionalist in me was pleased to see that after calling over a thousand MMA fights Mike Goldberg still doesn’t know what a head-arm triangle choke is - ‘He’s got the arm in…DOESN’T MATTER!’ from the Teixeira fight - and the poet in me was sad that he didn’t finally correctly identify a thing happening in the Octagon as ironic (Crocop fan and shorts-mimicker Miocic having no defence to getting his liver destroyed by kicks). Oh, has anyone else noticed that Paul Sass is 3-0 in the UFC, undefeated in a 13-fight career, and has only gone to decision once alongside 11 first round submissions?True, he can’t punch or do takedowns, but maybe there’s literally no lightweight in the world he can’t heelhook or triangle. He was supposed to fight Dunham last time out - that’s as good a next fight as any. 

Finally, great to see Hardy back in the win column. At first glance the shootout that led to the knockout looked terrifyingly close to Hardy Vs Condit, but in reality it showed that he’s grown as a fighter. The feint he threw before it was flawless, and the jab Ludwig caught him with was sheer reflexes. Hardy’s got genuine knockout power - much as I love them both and don’t want to see either lose, I think he’d make a great matchup with Akiyama. Only possible downside: I don’t think my TV could take all the swearing.

It’s difficult to articulate what I love most about the Korean Zombie. Firstly, there’s the fact that he comes out to The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ - does he know it’s about the cycle of resentment and injustice that led to an IRA bombing in Warrington, or did some UFC runner just do a search for his nickname on Spotify? Then there’s the fact that he consistently wears the only fighter-branded shirts I’d ever consider sporting in the sorts of hipster bars I go to. And then there’s the fact that he responded to a ridiculous decision loss against Leonard Garcia by hitting the never-before-seen-in-the-UFC Twister - which he’d learned from Youtube. Realistically though, what I love about Jung is the same thing I love about all my favourite fighters - he has minimal interest in winning decisions, and exactly zero interest in holding someone down to coast to a points win. By way of an example, he was easily winning round two in his fight against Poirier, who didn’t seem to have any answer to his very solid mount. But rather than simply drop half-arsed hammer fists for two minutes, Jung decided to jump on an armbar, then unleash a hellstorm of triangle/armbar/triangle/elbow attempts that left him absolutely exhausted for the third. And when he got his breath back in the fourth, he immediately went for a flying knee, then finished with the little-seen Darce. I doubt he can beat Aldo, but I hope they’re throwing so much bonus money at him that it leaves bruises.

Oh, and the other fights? Cerrone seems to have learned from the Diaz loss, no? He made Stephens - who only ever needs one big punch to win - look like a chump, mainly thanks to the same sort of economical down-the-pipe striking that the Stockton boys have made famous. I’m glad Lawlor got the knockout bonus, and I barely care that Sadollah robbed Lopez, who wasn’t doing much except cage-grinding anyway. Another solid card, but in the only thing in my head - aha-ha-ha - was the Zombie. Now, let’s just petition to change that theme tune. 

Well, that whole card was nothing short of glorious. 

It can’t be coincidence that Nate Diaz’ last two opponents (three if you count Gomi) have done their post-fight interviews with a sort of cat-in-a-washing-machine glaze on their faces that says they aren’t sure what the fuck just happened. These are very tough professional fighters who’ve spent eight weeks specifically preparing to fight a guy like Nate Diaz, and the actual Nate Diaz straight up mercs them so badly that they can’t quite believe it. Nate Diaz might be a fighting genius, and I think I’ve worked out why. 

He fights everywhere. Watching him fight Miller, I was struck by those moments when there’s a micro-lull in the fighting, when somebody takes a clean punch and resets, or when a clinch breaks and there’s a little pause. Or rather, I was struck by the lack of them, because Nate Diaz hits you in those micro-lulls. Diaz was firing those 70-percent punches every time Miller’s face was in range, and them getting through was clearly frustrating Miller. Add in the fact that Diaz is even more relentless in jiu-jitsu than he is in face-punching, and he’s a dangerous man. He’ll probably be in the same situation as his brother soon, where guys can beat him with lay-n-pray or point-fighting but I won’t ever accept that he’s actually lost. I’m actually looking forward to it. 

Palhares isn’t the best gameplanner, is he? He’s all happy if he can rip your leg off, but if that doesn’t work out he sometimes seems a bit lost. But much as I love the Treetrunk, I can’t be too sad after being treated to what was a masterful display of grappling (offensive and defensive) from Belcher. It’s fascinating to see the ground game evolve, and if you aren’t watching the Gracie Breakdowns then you should be, if only to increase your enjoyment of future events. 

Koscheck can moan about that decision all day, but he poked Johnny Hendricks in the eye twenty seconds in and still couldn’t land a decent right hand on him. If I’m going to watch wrestlers dominate at welterweight then I’d rather they be epically-bearded power-sluggers, and so I approve Hendricks’ rise. Ellenberger for a title shot next. 

And Pat Barry? Well, that blue-belt level BJJ aside, he needs to fight smarter and stop being so prepared to slug it out. He can land with accuracy, he’s just too happy to fight for the fans. 

In conclusion: number one contender bouts for everybody except Johnson, and if THQ don’t put the Diaz ‘Don’t be scared, homie’ taunt into the next Undisputed, I will likely cry. That is all.