(28-05-2011 14:42 )mitchell Wrote: Brian Stann v Jorge Santiago - Santiago Decision
Thiago Alves v Rick Story - Alves Decision
Stefan Struve v Travis Browne - Struve Submission
Frank Mir v Roy Nelson - Nelson TKO
Quinton Jackson v Matt Hamill - Rampage TKO
Not quite sure how this happened, it's been a while so I'll put it down to octagon rust
Brian Stann v Jorge Santiago
Brian Stann will probably never have an easier fight in his UFC career he was able to pick & choose when & where he threw his shots with Santiago unable to get near him, the BBJ black belt came into this fight with 9 OK's & 12 sub wins but never looked like troubling his opponent but with the skill set he has he will no doubt have better days ahead.
Brian Stann has the record & background the UFC & American's love so he'll most definetly be given a big name in his next fight.
Thiago Alves v Rick Story
Rick Story carved out a big victory for himself here to go 12-1 in his last 13 & has now won his last 6 fights since losing his UFC debut & is looking strong for a possible contender fight with fighters like Jake Shields or the winner of Carlos Condit v Dong Hyun Kim unless the UFC decide to pitch him against fellow wrestler Jon Fitch.
Thiago Alves now has to wonder where he goes from here as this may have been his last fight in the Welterweight division, if he does make the step up to Middleweight he'll bring a big name but form wise he may have to start somewhere near the bottom, he is now struggling to make weight at 170 so a move up will give him a more natural balance & enable him to concentrate on getting himself some ground skills as from now on every fight he has his opponent is just gonna pick him apart with takedowns & wrestle him against the cage as they know he lacks the skill in this kind of fight & it would be a big step for them with a win over the bigger name fighter.
Stefan Struve v Travis Browne
Stefan Struve is gonna be a very big tallent in the UFC over the next 10 years but the one thing he needs to do more than anything is to close up when fighting a big puncher, Junior dos Santos, Roy Nelson & Travis Browne have 25 KO's between them & all have a first round KO win over the 'Skyscraper'. He started well in this fight & looked to be settling in well & starting to keep Browne at bay with his long legs & arms but once again he was caught with the one punch KO & now will have to start over again with 2 or 3 more wins needed to put himself in with a shout of a big fight.
Travis Browne has now won all but 3 of his 12 fights in the first round & 9 of his 11 wins are by KO/TKO, a purple belt in BBJ he looks to be another Shane Carwin, he'll gain a lot of fans with the KO's but when it comes to the big time will he have to game plan & fitness to deal with the seasoned fighters, he looked like he was on his way to a loss in this fight even though it was only the first round but he'd already been caught in a choke & was being kept at bay by Struve but again the one punch KO came to the rescue probably by the surprise of a superman punch which looked like the only way he was gonna get near the Dutchman.
Frank Mir v Roy Nelson
Frank Mir needed this win big time to put his name in with a shot at a contender in his next fight & even though he dominated the fight he still didn't look like he was ever gonna finish it, that said Nelson has only been stopped once but with the skills that Mir has he could've shown more desire to win than just sapping the energy from 'Big Country', no doubt that Mir will now be 1 or 2 fights away from a title shot, but with Junior dos Santos v Shane Carwin & Brendan Schaub v Little Nog Mir may face one of the winners or may be put in with Matt Mitrione or Travis Browne or the less likely but more sellable fight v Stefan Struve.
Roy Nelson never looked comfortable & fell apart pretty much straight away & with only 4 fights into his UFC career (2-2) some may say its hard to see where he goes from here, he's no doubt a good fighter but his fitness is a big issue, that said the size of Frank Mir nowadays will be a match for most men.
Quinton Jackson v Matt Hamill
This may be a little harsh but have we just seen Matt Hamill showing us he isn't cut out to be a top contender, he said he was gonna
"Break the will of Rampage" but the only thing he may have broken was the hand of Rampage, right from the start he never got anywhere near to a takedown & was too cautious to get into a slug fest knowing the power possessed by Rampage, but with the Light Heavyweight division at it's current best there's plenty of fights to be had.
Rampage may have come into this fight with a right hand injury which would explain his lack of fire power throughout the fight knowing that one long spell of pressure would see the end of Hamill but he never quite built the momentum dispite one or two efforts, the word was that if he won & won big he would get a title shot but the outcome of the fight was only one of the said two with Rampage winning but not very well, it now remains to be seen whether the hand injury & the style of victory will get him Jon Jones in his next fight or not, along with the speculation of does Rampage still have the desire to fight the big fights or even fight at all.
This wasn't the show I expected it to be, I though it would be a little better but this maybe down to the fact Stefan Struve lost & lost bad & the lack of fight in Rampage.
Being a big fan of Stefan Struve I don't like saying this but if a GIF is made of him being KO'd by the Browne superman punch it will probably be the greatest GIF of all time.... Maybe Carlsberg should look into it
Oh I forgot the Bisping V Miller fight isn't big enough for PPV so will now take place on the finale of TUF, this doesn't sound too good for Mike, that said even the Yank fans are wondering why Jason Miller is one of the coaches with some saying Brian Stann should be put in his place... But then saying Stann doesn't have the charisma of drama for the show & also people don't wanna hear his patriotism shit, which I very much agree with.
Question remains will Michael Bisping ever be taken seriously as a UFC Middleweight contender?????????????????????????????????