I had a lot of fun with this card. The two fights on Spike definitely set the night up nicely, Mark Munoz still looks green but that fool has power. His striking is looking better, I think he’s gonna be trouble at 185 once he gets more fighting experience. I think his biggest weakness is that his striking is underdeveloped so he can’t set up his takedowns as efficiently as he should. That said, he sprung back up to his feet quickly every time and it was an entertaining fight.
That kimura by Phil Davis was crazy, it looked like he did it with one arm before they showed the replay and that looked hella nasty. I’m not sure what was up with Lauzon, he started off looking real slick and then just faded away by the second round. It still got fight of the night but I was expecting more fireworks from that fight. That said, Sotiropoulos is a beast in his own right and I can’t wait to see him again.
It kinda sucked that Penn knocked out Hughes that quickly. I was really rooting for Penn and it was awesome to see him get that decisive win. I was going for Hughes when I first heard of the matchup but then as the days inched closer to the event I started switching my stance and ended up pulling for BJ. I think it’s mostly because Penn has actual goals of going for a title shot and I want to see him be relevant. Hughes puts on exciting fights but he’s been taking the Couture approach of just fighting for the fun of it, I saw myself rooting for Penn as a sort of investment on a great fighter that was promising me more exciting fights in the future. I was hoping the fight would be a war but Hughes got caught. It sucked to see him go down that quickly.
As for the Falcao fight… he was really tentative for most of the first round until he let loose and caught the black dude off guard. Falcao looks like a promising fighter, he showed good wrestling and the fact that he has that BJJ blackbelt makes him a drangerous grappler. He won the first two rounds decisively so he decided to lay back the entire third round to run out the clock to put the fight away. I was pissed and I’m glad that the crowd booed his ass to make it clear that it was unacceptable. I saw a video where Dana said they had a good talking with him telling him they don’t want to see fights like that. They cut him some slack because it was his first UFC fight but I really hope he doesn’t do that shit again.
The Rampage/Machida fight went down a little better than i expected. I thought Rampage was going to get leg kicked and outpointed the whole fight but I was glad to see that he was able to close the distance to inflict damage on Machida often. It sure wasn’t the most entertaining fight but Rampage did his best to press the action… he even almost slammed Machida Pride-style! I was laughing, it’s like Lyoto knew that would be the end of him and he let go of that arm bar real quick 
What pisses me off about Machida is that he fights that laid back style for the first two rounds as if he has all the time in the world. Because Rampage pressed the action he ended up taking those rounds, in the third we see a glimpse of Machida greatness and Rampage was in trouble. Too little too late. Maybe in a 5 round fight that Machida gameplan will pay off but in three round fights he has to either finish his opponent in the third or be more active in the first rounds to guarantee a decision win. That said, I hope this bumps Machida out of main event status. I’m talking about having him in the first or second fight, I don’t want to pay the PPV money for a card with him as main or co-main event anymore.
Here’s clips from the post fight press conference featuring a very humble Rampage:
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Im like DW, sometimes i really dont like rampage, sometimes he seems cool. The fight was cool, I thought Machida won but i’d have to watch the fight again to confirm.
Some people say main events should be 5 Rounds, I tend to agree. A lot of the times the first couple of round or two are a feel out process & we end up with a fight like this that has a controversial ending.
Im still not that impressed with Muñoz, his striking is horrible & wrestling is good but overrated.He deifinitely has power though.
Falcao looks like a beast, he reminded me of Alves. He was really tentative, you could tell if he had gone hard after Harris he wouldve knocked him out. At the end of the first round he almost ended the fight & at the end of the 3rd when Harris taunted him he was about to beat his ass down but it was too late.
I Still dont get why Harris was cut. Sure the fight wasnt the most entertaining, but it wasnt horrible. He definitely pushed the action the first round, but after the beating & getting choked he wasnt all there. That’s a really bad cut by the UFC. I dont buy their explanation of them merging with the WEC as being the main reason