The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 11.25.08: Strikeforce - Destruction

Posted by Scott Kuczkowski on 11.25.2008

Did anyone realize there was another fight card this past Friday? What is up with that? What is the status of the UFC now that they have an entire three weeks off? And who in the hell is this big lug holding the UFC Heavyweight title? We'll answer all those questions and more...

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Well, UFC 91 came and went and I totally missed it due to a rather inconvenient 8 days spent in the middle of the Nevada desert without cable or internet access. Thankfully my DVR back home worked like it was meant to and recorded the event for my later viewing.

Before I go any further I want to take a moment to give a shout out to the Coast Guard boys from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They accompanied during my time in Nevada and turned out to be some pretty interesting characters.

Anyways, I missed watching the event live and it was already beaten to death by the time I got to watch it, so I'm just going to throw in a couple of quick opinions here and there about what I saw and some of the results.



Demian Maia is a beast on the ground but I think he has a ways to go before he can step up and face Anderson Silva. His hands just aren't there yet, but I could see him as a definitely threat to the throne in a year. A fight with Michael Bisping seems logical at this point, and then maybe Nate Marquardt afterwards.



I'm still not sold on Gabriel Gonzaga as a legitimate challenger for the title. I tend to think he was pushed too fast against Randy Couture and other than his head kick knockout against Mirko CroCop, Gonzaga never really showed me anything that made me think he could beat a top tier guy. While his win last Saturday was nice, his opponent was someone he was supposed to easily defeat, and therefore isn't that impressive.



How about Matt Brown? I bet most people who watched him on The Ultimate Fighter never figured he had any submissions off his back. I'm not getting on his bandwagon just yet, but he's definitely doing a good job of putting on exciting fights, which is really all that the fans want.



Dustin "McLovin" Hazelett has made quite name for himself as of late, hasn't he? I totally understand folks jumping on the Hazelett bandwagon, but we must all admit he has quite a ways to go before he'll even be considered a contender. While he is a wizard on the ground, his striking is rudimentary at best. With more fights under his belt and some dramatically improved striking, we might be classifying Hazelett as a true competitor to the title in a few years.



Anyone who doesn't list Kenny Florian in their Top 10 right now hasn't seen how good he really is. While I expected his fight with Joe Stevenson to be good, I never expected him to dominate and outclass Joe Daddy in every area like he did. Ken Flo has officially established himself as a threat to BJ Penn's title and I wouldn't be surprised to see him start appearing in people's Top 5 Lightweight listings. Kenny Florian means business folks.

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Good/Bad/Ugly

Enough talk about UFC 91; let's take a look at some recent fights. Strikeforce: Destruction was broadcast live on HDNet last Friday and managed to create somewhat of a stir. Let's take a look.



Nik Theotikos vs. Luke Rockhold: I had to admit I'd never seen either of these guys fight before but they both apparently like to finish their opponents pretty quickly.

The Good: Theotikos tried for a quick guillotine, but he didn't have his hands clasped and Rockhold was able to escape. From there Rockhold executed some ground and pound until he got Theotikos' back and secured the rear naked choke for the victory. Simple and easy fight.

The Bad: Theotikos was supposedly a striker, which begs the question why did he leave his bread and butter to go for a guillotine?

The Ugly: None.




Joe Riggs vs. Luke Stewart: It would be cool to see Riggs back in the UFC if he can put together some wins, though I don't know how much of an impact he would have in the welterweight division these days.

The Good: Round 1 saw Riggs on the constant defensive as Stewart took him down and worked for a more dominant position. The round ended with Riggs still on his back fighting off Stewart. Round 2 saw Riggs land some good shots on Stewart and eventually get a nice knockout.

The Bad: Round 1 was a little slow, but nothing too bad.

The Ugly: None




Lina Kvokov vs. Kim Couture: Couture looks like she is all business while Kvokov looks like she's trying to figure out how she got there.

The Good: Couture dominated the entire fight with punches and knees. I cannot overstress the degree to which she dominated this. I think a grappling dummy might have made for a tougher opponent than Kvokov.

The Bad: This entire fight as bad.

The Ugly: Kvokov had no business being in that cage as she was clearly outmatched and blatantly afraid of being hit. This fight is a classic example of why Dana White is so hesitant to get involved in women's MMA. This fight did nothing for women's MMA, did nothing for the entire fight card, and really belittled the premise that women's MMA could be anything other than a sideshow act. Shame on whoever allowed Kvokov in the cage.




Yves Edwards vs. Duane "Bang" Ludwig: Ludwig was a replacement for the injured Josh Thomson, who happened to join the broadcast team and helped call the fight. I was thinking Thomson sounded a lot like Tito Ortiz.

The Good: Ludwig had better punches and knees throughout the fight and looked to have Yves hurt from body shots in the second round. Yves, for his part avoided the strikes the best he could and got multiple takedowns. Ludwig walked away with the unanimous decision.

The Bad: Yves was able to score a few takedowns, but he couldn't improve his position at all on the ground and was constantly trying to get out of Ludwig's guard. This made for a pretty slow and rather disappointing fight. I would normally classify this as ugly, but I really just think Edwards walked into the fight with the wrong game plan. Ludwig did what he had to in order to take the win, but the fight itself wasn't the highlight of the card.

The Ugly: I think this fight even disappointed Thomson, who initially stated he thought it would be the fight of the night. He later admitted that it just wasn't unfolding as he thought it would.




Renato Sobral vs. Bobby Southworth: This fight was for Southworth's Strikeforce Light Heavyweight title, which he'd been defending like a snail defends a grain of sand. Well, maybe not that aggressively.

The Good: Southworth actually looked pretty shredded and ready to go for this fight. Unfortunately, his style was still like watching paint dry, so all he could do is push Sobral against the fence and hold him or take him down and lay on him. Sobral eventually landed an elbow to Southworth's right eyebrow and caused a cut that warranted a fight stoppage and a TKO victory for Sobral.

The Bad: Despite this being a title fight and Sobral being a credible threat, Southworth maintained his typical boring fighting style. Even the announce team mentioned he was like watching paint dry. Maybe Sobral can breath some life into the title and make it actually mean something.

The Ugly: None. Thankfully short.




Terry Martin vs. Scott Smith: Last time I saw Martin he was getting killed by Vitor Belfort. Not many people know Martin is enrolled at Adler School of Psychology's Chicago campus as a doctoral candidate. Last I Smith he was taking a beating from Robbie Lawler.

The Good: Both fighters came out swinging and after about a minute of trading back and forth, Smith caught Martin squarely on the chin for the knock out victory. The Cung Le quote of the fight: "Someone got knocked out." I'd say that was somewhat of an understatement.

The Bad: None

The Ugly: None


Well, I don't want to make it sound like this was a bad event, but I came away feeling a little underwhelmed. While all but one of the fights ended with a finish, the fights themselves seemed a little lackluster. This was weird since I normally walk away from Strikeforce events pretty satisfied with what I got. Maybe this was just an off event for them.

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No Respect

Brock Lesnar could be considered the Rodney Dangerfield of the MMA world due to the lack of respect he's gotten since his win over Randy Couture. It seemed like immediately after the match folks pointed out that Lesnar didn't deserve a title shot and that Randy was "past his prime" as a fighter anyways. Basically, anything and everything has been thrown at Lesnar to devalue and discredit his win and for the life of me I cannot understand why.

Is it because he's used hard work to make himself a better and successful person while others are happy to stand aside and throw stones? Is it because he knows he's successful and likes to build heat for his fights? So this was his fourth professional fight. Big deal? Nobody bothered to mention that Randy won his first world title during his fourth professional fight, so why is it such a big deal now for Brock?

To top it off, even Inside MMA got into the Brock bashing by starting their show off with a discussion about how they have previously disparaged smaller organizations for having champions with only 3 or 4 fights under their belts, but pointed out that now the UFC was doing the same thing. Apparently Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice think comparing an NCAA wrestling champion to the local tough guys fighting for free is accurate and unbiased reporting.

To add insult to injury, one of the guests on the show was Dave "Pee Wee" Herman, whose comment regarding whether Brock was even worthy of a title shot was, "So he beat Heath Herring. Who hasn't?" Is that jealousy I hear Dave? Who hasn't beaten Heath Herring? Well Dave, you haven't. In fact, if we were to look at Dave's impressive record of 14-0, we would discover that 7 of his wins came against guys making their professional debuts, and that the combined records of his first 11 opponents were 15-8. Does that provide him with enough credibility to decide who deserves a title shot and who doesn't? I don't think so.

Brock Lesnar is the UFC Heavyweight Champion and folks had better wrap their minds around that. Chances are good he will face Antonio Rodrigo Minotauro Noguiera and I'm not sold that Nogueira will beat Brock to become the undisputed champion. The constant bashing of Lesnar should have ended when he defeated Couture, but apparently that victory wasn't good enough. Perhaps a victory over Noguiera will silence the critics.

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Speaking of Inside MMA, I feel there is something else about that show that I must discuss.

While I know Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten are more announcers/personalities than they are investigative reporters or journalists, I feel they and the show itself should attempt to maintain a bit of journalistic integrity when reporting a story.

Currently, if they report something that is later proven as totally incorrect no mention or clarification is ever made of it. Bas and Kenny could report one day that Tim Sylvia died in a plane crash (or whatever rumor is believed on that day). When that rumor is later proven untrue, no mention is made of it the following week. Where is the integrity?

This occurred last week when they discussed Urijah Faber's last fight against Mike Brown. Kenny Rice was quick to note the state athletic commission reported Faber only made $14,000. A big deal was made in regards to this figure due to Faber being one of the worlds best at Featherweight. The discussion then moved towards the need to create a fighter's union to bargain for better wages, all the while painting Zuffa to be money-grubbing scrooges.

What wasn't addressed the subsequent week was that Faber's manager clarified the $14,000 was in fact accurate, but only because Faber was paid an additional sum prior to the fight. This would indicate Faber made more than $14,000 for his fight. Did Kenny or Bas choose to clarify this or correct themselves? No, they didn't. To do so would mean that Dana White and the UFC aren't the bad guys everyone wants to think they are, and we all know that bashing the UFC is the default action of most MMA columnists.

Ultimately, the inability to admit when their wrong just means that Inside MMA is news viewed from a very biased standpoint, and that not everything talked about is factual. Unfortunately, there is no counter programming to Inside MMA, so it's not like fans can change the channel to another MMA news program to get the whole story.


Well, that's it for this week. Leave me something below.

Later.

All photos are courtesy of UFC.com, Sherdog.com, and Strikeforceusa.net.