(Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin) Photo by Sherdog.com
Yuri Alcantara vs. Hacran Dias: This fight was the most
disappointing in my opinion. I thought that it would be an awesome fight but it
was a very lackluster with Dias winning every round. His standup was clearly
inferior to Alcantara but his ground game was much better, although Yuri’s
armbar attempt was beautiful. Eventaully Dias won by unanimous decision.
Possible matchups for Dias: Dias is for real. Alcantara was starting to be considered a title contender but then Dias took his place. Dias should fight the always-entertaining Diego Nunes to let us know exactly where he ranks among the UFC featherweights.
Possible matchups for Alcantara: Alcantara is still a very good fighter. He just needs to work on his takedown defense. He could face off against fellow Brazilian, Rani Yahya who is a very underrated featherweight in the UFC but hasn’t fought since 133.
Fabricio Werdum vs. Mike Russow: This fight was just completely pointless. The only real point that it served was to show where Mike Russow could take his career. I can say this, he won’t be challenging for the title. Werdum showed off his ever improving striking with his dominant first round TKO of he extremely durable Russow.
Possile matchups for Werdum: This was a hard one to find but someone talked about him having a rubber match with Overreem. This actually makes 100% sense. Because Overreem’s drug test put him down a couple notches on the ladder, Werdum had shown, in my opinion, the best striking improvement in a very short amount of time. If Overreem truly feels that he deserves that title shot, he should finish the series with Werdum.
Possible matchups for Russow: Russow will always win a few and take a step up in comptetion, but lose. Another fighter that came off a recent 1st round loss is Dave Herman. Herman is very unpredictable and this could be a rebound fight for both of these guys.
Rony “Jason” Mariano Bezerra vs. Godofredo “Pepey” Castro: Jason came out with the best walkout that I have seen in years. He came out extremely emotional and was crying on his way out to the Octagon. It gave me goose bumps. You don’t often see a fighter so openly emotional right before the biggest fight of their career. But sadly this fight was not very good. Pepey, like I said before, has some of the sloppiest standup that I have ever seen and Jason took advantage of that, eventually winning a unanimous decision.
Possible matchups for Jason: Jason is very good. Although he was underwhelming in this fight (which was most likely the UFC jitters), he trains at Black house and earlier in his career, fought to a very close split decision loss to Renan Barao. Jason will be challenging for the title in the coming years but his next fight is his first step. A fight against fellow rising star in Jimy Hettes would undoubtedly be a very closely contested and entertaining fight that would be action packed in every area of the fight.
Possible matchups for Pepey: What I got out of his fight with Jason was that he simply isn’t UFC material. He pulls guard only to do nothing. He throws with bad intentions, only to miss by 10 feet. The kid has very good BJJ but he needs to work on his standup desperately. Although Matt Grice looked good in his last fight, he still hasn’t beaten anyone that good. If he could beat Pepey, that would be impressive.
Cezar “Mutante” Ferreira vs. Sergio Moraes: This fight was amazing. Mutante easily won the first but Moraes knew how to put on a good fight and nearly finished Mutante with strikes, which was very surprising. Moraes came out aggressive again in the 3rd but was dropped in the last seconds of the fight, sealing the unanimous decision for Mutante.
Possible matchups for Mutante: Daniel Sarafian was injured and pulled out of his fight with Mutante, and I was going to go with Sarafian. Sarafian deserves a shot at Mutante to let us know who the true Ultimate Fighter is.
Possible matchups for Moraes: Moraes is an entertaining fighter with some of the best BJJ at 185 but he was unable to show that. Instead, he showed powerful standup and incredible heart. Chris Camozzi was losing most of his fight with Catone before landing the one knee. Fight with Camozzi could show us if Moraes is UFC material.
Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin: This fight saved this PPV. It lived up to the hype of being another barnburner. Franklin won every round in my book while Wanderlei won the 2nd with a 10-8 due to the knockdown and flurry. Franklin looked great though: awesome footwork and accurate striking. He landed jab after jab in the later rounds.
Possible matchups for Franklin: He was originally scheduled to face Cung Le at 148 but saved the day once again. He should face off against the winner of Le and Cote at 148.
Possible matchups for Silva: If he doesn’t retire after this fight, then why not try and get him and Vitor to face each other?
Possible matchups for Dias: Dias is for real. Alcantara was starting to be considered a title contender but then Dias took his place. Dias should fight the always-entertaining Diego Nunes to let us know exactly where he ranks among the UFC featherweights.
Possible matchups for Alcantara: Alcantara is still a very good fighter. He just needs to work on his takedown defense. He could face off against fellow Brazilian, Rani Yahya who is a very underrated featherweight in the UFC but hasn’t fought since 133.
Fabricio Werdum vs. Mike Russow: This fight was just completely pointless. The only real point that it served was to show where Mike Russow could take his career. I can say this, he won’t be challenging for the title. Werdum showed off his ever improving striking with his dominant first round TKO of he extremely durable Russow.
Possile matchups for Werdum: This was a hard one to find but someone talked about him having a rubber match with Overreem. This actually makes 100% sense. Because Overreem’s drug test put him down a couple notches on the ladder, Werdum had shown, in my opinion, the best striking improvement in a very short amount of time. If Overreem truly feels that he deserves that title shot, he should finish the series with Werdum.
Possible matchups for Russow: Russow will always win a few and take a step up in comptetion, but lose. Another fighter that came off a recent 1st round loss is Dave Herman. Herman is very unpredictable and this could be a rebound fight for both of these guys.
Rony “Jason” Mariano Bezerra vs. Godofredo “Pepey” Castro: Jason came out with the best walkout that I have seen in years. He came out extremely emotional and was crying on his way out to the Octagon. It gave me goose bumps. You don’t often see a fighter so openly emotional right before the biggest fight of their career. But sadly this fight was not very good. Pepey, like I said before, has some of the sloppiest standup that I have ever seen and Jason took advantage of that, eventually winning a unanimous decision.
Possible matchups for Jason: Jason is very good. Although he was underwhelming in this fight (which was most likely the UFC jitters), he trains at Black house and earlier in his career, fought to a very close split decision loss to Renan Barao. Jason will be challenging for the title in the coming years but his next fight is his first step. A fight against fellow rising star in Jimy Hettes would undoubtedly be a very closely contested and entertaining fight that would be action packed in every area of the fight.
Possible matchups for Pepey: What I got out of his fight with Jason was that he simply isn’t UFC material. He pulls guard only to do nothing. He throws with bad intentions, only to miss by 10 feet. The kid has very good BJJ but he needs to work on his standup desperately. Although Matt Grice looked good in his last fight, he still hasn’t beaten anyone that good. If he could beat Pepey, that would be impressive.
Cezar “Mutante” Ferreira vs. Sergio Moraes: This fight was amazing. Mutante easily won the first but Moraes knew how to put on a good fight and nearly finished Mutante with strikes, which was very surprising. Moraes came out aggressive again in the 3rd but was dropped in the last seconds of the fight, sealing the unanimous decision for Mutante.
Possible matchups for Mutante: Daniel Sarafian was injured and pulled out of his fight with Mutante, and I was going to go with Sarafian. Sarafian deserves a shot at Mutante to let us know who the true Ultimate Fighter is.
Possible matchups for Moraes: Moraes is an entertaining fighter with some of the best BJJ at 185 but he was unable to show that. Instead, he showed powerful standup and incredible heart. Chris Camozzi was losing most of his fight with Catone before landing the one knee. Fight with Camozzi could show us if Moraes is UFC material.
Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin: This fight saved this PPV. It lived up to the hype of being another barnburner. Franklin won every round in my book while Wanderlei won the 2nd with a 10-8 due to the knockdown and flurry. Franklin looked great though: awesome footwork and accurate striking. He landed jab after jab in the later rounds.
Possible matchups for Franklin: He was originally scheduled to face Cung Le at 148 but saved the day once again. He should face off against the winner of Le and Cote at 148.
Possible matchups for Silva: If he doesn’t retire after this fight, then why not try and get him and Vitor to face each other?
UFC 147 Prelim Recap Click Here
