Before I start on the main card, I’m going to talk about the extremely impressive fighters on the Spike TV prelims. First, Bart Palaszewski took on Tyson Griffin in a Featherweight bout in which I thought that it would be a rather easy fight for Griffin. Not so much; it was going pretty even then out of nowhere, Bart caught him. I thought that Griffin would weather the storm but Bart was absolutely relentless. I haven’t seen that kind of onslaught since Liddell Ortiz II. Bart was extremely impressive with his quick KO win over the game Tyson Griffin. But we cant forget about Donald Cerrone. Dennis Siver was just a couple wins away from a title shot and Donald Cerrone destroyed that. I expected Cerrone to take him down and submit with his superior ground game but instead fought Siver with his own game, kickboxing. He rocked Siver with a head kick and it seemed that Siver made it through but not too much later, Cerrone rocked him again with punches, putting him down, and submitted him with a rear naked choke.
I am very disappointed with Hatsu Hioki’s performance. I thought that George Roop was an easy fight for him, and it should have been. Instead Roop fought him to a split decision in which a lot of people will disagree with, it truly could have gone either way. Hioki mounted him and didn’t get a thing out of it, I saw a few armbars that he should have gone for. Of course, we have to give props to George Roop, he looked really good, on top of his game. If he won, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Hioki will get better, he is the last chance for JMMA, I’m guessing it was just the “UFC jits”.
I was really hoping for Scott Jorgenson to show the world what the bantamweights are all about. He was of the most entertaining fighters in the sport, and he played it really safe by constantly taking down Jeff Curran for a unanimous decision victory. Jeff Curran looked good but I’m just worried that he may too old for the bantamweights; these guys are young hungry lions, and he needs to ready for that if he wants any hope in a run for the title.
Saw this coming: Roy Nelson wins by TKO. “Big Country” was in the best shape of his life, looking a lot skinnier and gained more muscle mass. This made me even more nervous, I thought Nelson’s cardio was going to be dynamite. To my pleasant surprise, Cro Cop started off really good, he even rocked Roy early in the fight. I knew he wasn’t going to be able to finish him, he’s way too hard to finish. I’m just happy that Cro Cop retired and didn’t let his legacy burn even more by fighting in smaller promotions afterwards.
The fight I was most excited for turned out to be the worse of the night. I really wanted to see how Mitrione would do against some of the top fighters, but he seemed very hesitant. He seemed too scared to really get in there and punch, which is weird because, he’s so fast, he needs to be more confident in his speed and chin. Cheick Kongo kind of just cruised his way through, he also seemed hesitant though. Mitrione should have noticed this, Kongo was scared of his power, very disappointing.
This was easily the best Nick Diaz we have ever seen. Nick obliterated BJ Penn into retirement. BJ was so battered up at the end of the fight that he retired; he announced this during the post fight interview. But we can’t forget about the first round, BJ started off really well. I was actually questioning myself on why I even picked Diaz, but after the second round, he answered me loudly. So loud that he actually got himself a title shot past Carlos Condit. Super Bowl weekend, GSP vs. Diaz.
