The Ultimate eXperience 05.26.08: UFC 84, Coleman and More

Posted by Ryan Seymour on 05.26.2008

Tune into the latest edition of The Ultimate eXperience. This week I give my detail thoughts on how well UFC 84 went and what could be in the future for the winners. Also I pick two good replacements for the injured Coleman and tell you about all the good cards in the upcoming month.





Welcome to another edition of The Ultimate eXperience, we are hot of UFC 84 and what an event it was. For me it had some highs (Wanderlei getting back on the winning ways) and some lows (Tito Ortiz losing to Machida) but overall it was a good event. With that out the way let me start up another edition of The Ultimate eXperience.

Blessing in disguise?
News broke out this week that Mark Coleman has been forced out of his fight against Brock Lesnar at UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. Some see this as terrible news but I think that a more exciting match up can be made from Coleman getting injured. I can see a few comparisons between Brock Lesnar and Mark Coleman, both are great wrestlers and look to be busy on the ground, trying to use the ground and pound technique. After saying that, Lesnar is 13 years younger then Coleman and I think Lesnar would have better endurance and get his first win comfortably. With Coleman out there are still many top fighters that Lesnar could face of against. I wouldn't mind seeing a Lesnar/Kongo fight, Kongo is no push over in the division and is more of a challenger to the title then Coleman. Lesnar/Herring would also be an interesting fight, I think both wouldn't mind it on the ground and it would go down to who could get the better strikes on the ground. It would be Herring's knees to the body against Lesnar trying to ground and pound him; very interesting in my opinion.

The card for UFC 87: Seek and Destroy looks like another great PPV from the UFC. Coleman's replacement hasn't been announced yet but whoever faces Lesnar will have a tough time with the fans, as it is Lesnar's hometown. The main event for this event was announced recently, it will be UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre against Jon Fitch. Fitch has won 15 fights in a row and currently ties with Royce Gracie with most consecutive UFC wins, with his last eight wins inside the octagon. St. Pierre dominated Serra in April and it would be hard to bet against St. Pierre. Also on the card is Roger Huerta facing of against Kenny Florian, you would think the winner of that fight would be given the next lightweight title shot.

Other exciting bouts that have been rumored for UFC 87 consist of Henderson/Franklin, Guida/Danzig and MacDonald/Maia. Henderson against Franklin will be an interesting fight for sure, both have had brutal losses from Anderson Silva. Franklin was able to get back on the winners board when he outlasted Travis Lutter at UFC 83. Henderson is riding a two game losing streak but whatever you do, don't count him out of this. Guida against Danzig has the potential to be a fight of the year candidate. Both of them fight at a fast pace and the bout has excitement written all over it. Lastly a fight which I think will be very interesting is Jason MacDonald vs. Demian Maia. Although some my disagree with me, I think this fight will be a good middleweight fight. Demian Maia is coming of a huge victory over Ed Herman at UFC 83 and MacDonald is fresh of a victory over Joe Doerksen, also at UFC 83. Both fighters are submission specialist and it will be interesting if they cancel each other out or if one fighter will be able to get the better of there opponent on the ground.

UFC 84: Ill Will Thoughts
UFC 84: Ill Will had one of the best cards to date and it had to deliver, and not be like UFC 73 which had a stacked card but didn't deliver. This event had everything and I have to say that it did in fact DELIVER.

*First bout to start of the night was undefeated fighter Thiago Silva facing of against Antonio Mendes. Everyone predicted that Thiago Silva would go straight through Mendes, and that was what pretty much happened. Mendes did throw a slight scar to Silva when he threw a great head kick which made Silva stumble for a moment. Silva was able to recover and show his great game ground to pound out Mendes and earn the TKO victory.

*Next fight was a fight almost everybody was looking forward to, Tito Ortiz in his last fight in the UFC against Lyoto ‘The Dragon' Machida. The fans were going wild for this fight but the fight didn't live up to the hype. For most of the fight Machida would back away from Ortiz and take his shots wisely. This didn't make the fight entertaining until the very last minute of the fight. In the last minute of the fight, Machida was able to get a liver punch (Bas Rutten Style) on Tito which dropped him. Machida pounced on Ortiz trying to finish the fight but Tito was able to keep his composure and nearly win the fight with an arm triangle/arm bar. After the fight Tito said there was still a slight chance that he will still fight in the UFC. Where ever he fights, I think people are still going to pay to see him.

*I thought Wilson Gouveia vs. Goran Reljic was going to be a dull fight but boy was I wrong. This fight was a very see-sawing affair and both fighters had there chances to win. In the opening round Reljic was using a lot of kicks to Gouveia, which was frustrating Gouveia. Near the end of the round Gouveia had a good flurry of punches on Reljic, Reljic realized he was in trouble and pulled guard on Gouveia. In the second round, it looked like Gouveia had Reljic hurt but Reljic was able to turn the tables around and finish Gouveia of. The fight was so good that they gave it the Fight of The Night Award

*Going into this fight Keith Jardine would have known that he was one win away from getting a title shot, on the other hand Wanderlei Silva needed a victory. Silva came into this fight throwing bombs like we are used to, and finished of Keith Jardine in only 36 seconds. With this win Wanderlei had put his name into a bunch of good light heavyweights fighting for a title shot. Another win over a top competitor in the light heavyweight division would make Wanderlei close to getting a UFC title shot. As for Jardine, I have officially labeled him the MOST INCONSISTENT FIGHTER. Let me take you back to UFC 66, Jardine faced of against Forrest Griffin. Jardine looked excellent and was able to knockout Griffin in the first round. Then we go to UFC 71 where he faces no-name Houston Alexander and he gets knocked out by Alexander within the first minute of the fight. His next fight was against Chuck Liddell at UFC 76 and he was a huge underdog in the fight. Jardine out worked Liddell using leg/body kicks on Liddell and even knocking him down once; Jardine beats Liddell by unanimous decision. After the big win over Liddell, he faces of against Wanderlei Silva and gets beaten in 36 seconds. I really feel sorry for Jardine fans as he has big achievements inside the octagon then next fight he has a brutal loss.

*Now onto the main event of the show, BJ ‘The Prodigy' Penn against Sean ‘Muscle Shark' Sherk. I thought that if this fight went into the second or third round, then Sherk would be able to start dominating Penn and be able to use his excellent cardio. That was far from what happened as although Penn has been accused of having suspect cardio, his cardio looked well at UFC 84. I was very surprised that Sherk only had one takedown attempt for the entire fight. BJ Penn had Sherk dazed and then threw a beautiful knee which resulted in the end of the fight. BJ Penn has looked great in his last three fights at lightweight, defeating Jens Pulver, Joe Stevenson and now Sean Sherk. His next opponent will probably be the winner of Huerta/Florian but after his victory he said he has some interest in fighting Georges St. Pierre for the second time. I am far from getting pumped up for that fight as there isn't a lot to gain having two different weight class champions fighting each other.

A Huge Month For MMA
In the next month, you will be getting a different variety of MMA organizations as 7 events will be aired between now and June 21st. Some events are not as big as others but I think there are a few bouts which will be highly entertaining. Seeing shows a day after each other will be great, for instance watching EliteXC's big show on CBS followed by the showdown of Faber vs. Pulver on WEC the following day. Other events that are only a day apart are Sengoku 3 and UFC 85 as well as EliteXC: Return of The King and DREAM 4. So all you need to do is sit back and relax as mixed martial arts will highlight different weight classes from bantamweights to heavyweights, from now to June 21st. Below is a little detail about the seven different events coming up, UFC 86 is not below but that isn't to far away as well as that is on July 6th.


May 31 – EliteXC: Primetime - at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey
---Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson
---Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith

June 1 – WEC 34 - at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California
---WEC Featherweight Championship: Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver
---WEC Bantamweight Championship: Miguel Torres vs. Yoshiro Maeda

June 7 – UFC 85: Bedlam – at the O2 arena in London, England
---Matt Hughes vs. Thiago Alves
---Fabricio Werdum vs. Brandon Vera
---Michael Bisping vs. Jason Day

June 8 – WVR Presents Sengoku 3 – Saitama Super Arena in Saitama City, Japan
---Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Maurice Smith
---Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Travis Wiuff

June 14 – EliteXC: Return Of The King - Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Oahu, Hawaii
---Lightweight Championship: KJ Noons vs. Yves Edwards
---Murilo Rua vs. Tony Bonello

June 15 – DREAM 4 – at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan
---Ronaldo de Souza vs. Jason Miller
---Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Melvin Manhoef
---Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto vs. TBD
---Denis Kang vs. TBD

June 21 – TUF 7 Finale – The Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas, Nevada
---TUF Finalist #1 vs. TUF Finalist #2
---Kendall Grove vs. Evan Tanner
---Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti