Sam's UFC 141 Recap

Before we begin on the main card, we start with the biggest winners on the prelims. Sadly, the stacked prelim wasn’t very exciting but it did have a few exciting moments. The very first fight of the night, a fight that should have been on the main card in the first place, wasn’t as good as it could have been as Diego Nunes squeezed by Manny Gamburyan with a 29-28 unanimous decision. Escudero’s return to the UFC was spoiled as he took on tough contender, Jacob Volkmann. Volkmann, with his deceptively strong wrestling, dominated Escudero for two and three quarters of the fight. Escudero pulled off an extremely tight power guillotine on him with a minute left, and it seemed that Volkmann was going unconscious but he squeezed out to take the unanimous decision victory. He called out Frankie Edgar and Barack… again. Dong Hyun Kim dominated the whole fight with Sean Pierson while constantly looking for the crane kick KO. He threw it six times throughout the fight, with only one of them landing, nearly knocking him out with ten seconds left in the second round. The Spike prelims weren’t anything special except the Njokuani and Castillo fight had its moments. It was a close fight where it could have gone either way but Castillo squeezed by him for the Split decision victory. Ross Pearson was impressive in his win over Junior Assuncao but it wasn’t anything special.

Jimy Hettes has SUCH a bright future ahead of him. In a fight that I thought was going to be very tough for him against Nam Phan, he ran through him. I said that it was a very hard fight to pick, but my brother Dave said it wasn’t. He thought that Hettes didn’t have chance against Phan but I saw a lot of potential in Hettes. Jimy Hettes absolutely destroyed Phan en route to a unanimous decision victory, two of them 30-25, the other 30-26. Be looking for this kid to be fighting elite guys soon and for the belt. If his standup gets better, he will be a force, and only 24 years old!

Speaking of 24 year olds, Alexander Gustaffson easily ran through the highly experienced Vladimir Matyushenko. I knew that Gustaffson was going to win but not as easily as he did, and I didn’t think that he would beat him on the feet! I thought he would play it smart by going to the ground for the submission. After not much action, momentum and gravity did their jobs when Matyushenko ran in to close off the distance, only to be dropped by running into a jab. Gustaffson will be fighting Jon Jones in the next year or two, considering Jones will still be champ (it seems as such).

Upset of the year anyone? Johny Hendricks blasted Jon Fitch in only 12 seconds by KO. Jon Fitch has fought the likes of Thiago Alves (twice), Diego Sanchez, Georges St. Pierre, Paulo Thiago, Mike Pierce, Ben Saunders, and B.J. Penn. He won all those except GSP and a controversial draw against BJ Penn. Impressive? Hendricks is impressive himself but know one saw this fight going they way it did, no one. Hendricks launched himself into title contention with one huge left hand.

In a fight that we all expected to be a closely contested fight, wasn’t at all. Nate Diaz fought like he left off with his fight with Gomi. He absolutely dominated Cerrone for the unanimous decision victory with absolutely amazing boxing, crisp and beautiful to watch. Cerrone looked absolutely flat footed. He was slow and this could have been a cost of an adrenaline dump due to high emotions. This was a grudge match in a fight that Cerrone did most of the talking. In the pre fight stare down, Cerrone gave Diaz the finger instead of touching gloves. But after two extremely dominant rounds turned in by Diaz, Diaz returned the favor by giving Cerrone the two birds leading into the third round. The third was just like the other two, dominant. Believe it or not, they actually touched gloves and hugged each other at the end. It’s hard not to respect a guy after you two just went at it for 15 minutes. Diaz keeps looking more and more impressive in every fight back at lightweight.

Alistair Overeem proved that he belongs with the top of the UFC’s heavyweight division with a dominant performance against Brock Lesnar. Overeem showed off his MMA skills with the easily stuffed takedown of Brock Lesnar, something people did not expect. He then showed off that K-1 level striking with beautiful standup, and a deadly liver kick that ended it. After that fight, Lesnar retired after having a very hard few years with his internal disease and getting really beat up. Thank you Lesnar for helping the UFC gain lots of power in the mainstream media world and all the exciting fights you delivered.

Happy New Year everybody!!!