Recap of UFC 67 In Detail
Well I never see a recap for any of the UFC's on here with the exception of the occasional posting of someone elses recap (outside of this site) so I thought I would go ahead and recap UFC 67 and my thoughts on the overall show. This is not a play by play or anything as time consuming, BUT, yes you should read the post in its entirety, I know it's long, it is supposed to be.
The pre-show clips were great, especially the one of Dana White talking about Cro Cop and saying in a very serious tone, something like "He is the best striker I have ever seen bar none", it just gave you a feel of what was to come later that night from Mirko.
The opening fight - Cote vs Smith.
The fight started out pretty decent qith both of them throwing strikes but quickly turned into a very defensive Cote whom it was quite obvious came into the fight with a "do not lose" gameplan as opposed to a "win the fight, leave it out of the judges hands" gameplan.
Around midway through round 1, the fans became restless and were tired of Cote literally running from Smith and began the inevitable booing, this continued for the entire 3 round fight, the constant Cote sprintings and at one point in the 3rd round Cote connects with a huge overhand right and puts Smith on queer street, then proceeds to run at him, then stop short, throw his hands up at him and make some funny facial gestures and noises at him, other than that, no one was ever in serious danger of losing and Cote avoiding engaging for the entire fight.
Overall the fight failed miserably and was easily the worst fight of the night.
Rampage vs Eastman - Round 1 started off really slowly, both fighters circling eachother and throwing a strike occasionally, Rampage landed a nice combination late in the round and hurt Eastman. Then in round 2 Rampage was much more aggressive and started throwing more often and landing more often, his uppercuts were landing and were damaging Eastman, Marvin did land a nice right elbow but let Rampage get his distance again and then Rampage landed a series of uppercuts that hurt Eastman and continued to throw them until Eastman went down and the ref stopped the fight.
Overall a good fight, it started very slowly but round 1 ended with a spark and round 2 was very active and exciting.
Huerta vs Halverson - Round 1 opens with Halverson shotting in for takedowns and failing, then Hurta landing a huge knee to the body of Halverson, then Halverson falling face first into the mat and covering the sides of his face.
While we all thought it was in illegal knee to the face of Halverson as Halverson went down imediately after the knee landed, the replay clearly showed the knee landing in the shoulder/arm pit area and Halverson basically threw the fihgt and tried to win on an illegal knee which after the replays, it was clearly not.
This fight was very dissapointing on Halverson's end, Huerta looked very impressive and for the fight to end on a flop like that, it was horrible.
I would like to see Halverson dropped from the UFC, faking an illegal strike and floppign to the ground is just ridiculous, no MMA org should want to pick him up after faking an illegal strike.
Cro Cop vs Sanchez - Sanches looked terrified even from the staredown. Round 1 opens with Sanchez coming out throwing for the fences and nothing connecting, then Cro Cop countering with the straight left and connecting, Sanchez at that point feels the power of Cro Cop and seems very scared and timid, Cro Cop then lands with more puches and a punishing left low kick to the liver, Cro Cop proceeds to stalk Sanchez around the Octagon and lands another huge live kick, Sanchez then proceeds to retreat and seems to no longer want to engage, Cro Cop then landed a huge right low leg kick that lifts Sanchez off of the ground momentarily and nearly drops him, then throws the high kick that lands but only with his foot so it does not KO Sanzhez but still hurts him, SAnches then proceeded to put his hand up to try and block the high kick as he was hurt and was on the verge of defeat, Cro Cop then landed some clean pucnhes, Sanchez goes down, Cro Cop take side control and then full mount and throws some punches and the fight is stopped.
This was a great showing of Cro Cop's skill and overall I liked this fight, not a very admirable opponent but undertandibly so as the fans are not yet familiar with Cro Cop and while he can and will defeat everyone at HW, if they were to throw him in with Mir, AA, Couture, Vera, Monson, etc. and Cro Cop just came in and destroyed them, it may turn him into the bad guy as some Croatian no one has ever heard of destroyed one of their idols, so this was a great way to build Cro Cop's reputation and it did just that, the fans were all cheering and were very impressed, Cro Cop's performance was the most dominant of the night.
Main Event, A. Silva vs Lutter - round 1 they proceed to circle eachother for what seemd like an eternity but was likely around 90 seconds or so, then Lutter shoots in for the takedown and eats a knee but secures the takedown, Silva then throws some vicious up kicks that are landing on the face of Lutter, he then falls int guard and Silva has it tight, Lutter is able to do absolutely nothing and tried to work the body, Silva quickly stands up and throws a kick to Lutter face but Lutter cought it and scored another takedown, Silva then throws up a triangle but Lutter gets out of it and gets side control and then the mount, silva grabs Lutters armpits, then Lutter proceeds to throw pucnhes onto Silvas face but with Silva holding Lutter's armpits, the punches had little effect on them, then Silva reverses and Lutter ended up on his back with Silva throwing some leg kicks and the round coming to a close.
Round 2 opens with Lutter getting the takedown immediately, then getting up kicked in the face while trying to jump into guard and Silva throwing up another triangle, then lockign his legs into place, thus sinking it in deep, he was pulling down on Lutters head and Lutter was puching back on his own head and was still able to breath, his face was bright red and it was clear, he was not getting out of the triangle, Silva then proceeded to throw pin point accurate elbows right on Lutter's har line around the temple area and Lutter than tapped out.
Great fight, it was especially satisfying to see Lutter's ground game hyped in such a n unrealistically huge maner, calling himslef one of the best grapplers, Goldberg calling him the Michael Jordan of the ground game and Anderson Silva saying, ifthe fight goes to thr ground, I WILL submit him, he did exactly that and his fan base continues to grow and he is epitomizing what a well rounded fighter is and the fans are realizing just how great he is.
Griffin vs Egdar - It was a very exciting fight from bell to bell, Edgar showed great wrestling technique as did Griffin and they were both landign good punches standing. Edgar was scoring takedowns but when Griffin had Edar picked up in the air and had locked up and taking him down, Edgar would grab the cage and prevent the takedown.
I noticed this happen 3 times and it was not a quick grab, they were Edgar, literally holding onto the fence for dear life like Kenny Florian did against Sherk, Edgar should've been DQ after the 3rd grab, it really is such a cowardly act to grab the fence and deny your oppoent of the takedown, every time Edgar took griffin down, Griffin could've grabbed the fence and avoided it, but he's a man and plays by the rules.
Overall it was still a great fight but the outcome was semmingly going to be different when Griffin was the one with top position on the ground.
I would like to see the yellow card implemented into the UFC, it is vital to putting an end to fighters literally running from one another, stalling fightts on the cage, and grabbing the cage to deny the takedown.
Matin vs Rivera - Not much to say about this one, Rivera threw a kick, Martin grabbed it and took Rivera to the ground and landed osm huge punches which resulted in stoppage.
Not a great fight, it lasted 15 seconds, nothing impressive, huge punches via gnp, no real chance to showcase anything.
Closing on the Event
Overall the event was decent, I would rate it a 6/10, the reasonign for that is Cro Cop, Silva and Rampage, Griffin vs Edgar was the only matchup that managed to make it a competitive fight (other the big name fighters; Rampage and A. Silva).
Another subject I would lie to address is the LOGOS in the OCTAGON.
This is a HUGE issue for the fighters, that massive Xyience can in the center of the octagon is slippery, so are the xyience logos of the xyience text on both sides of the Xyience can, fighters are constantly slipping on them, Smith slipped a number of times, Sanches slipped, eastman slipped, it was ridicuous and is so each and every event, there are constantly slips from those logos and it IS going to cost one of the huge names in MMA a fihgt eventually, it is inevitable.
The logos are not sewn into the octagon fabric, they are simply placed ontop of the fabric and appear to be made out of the same materials as a silk screen so they are damn slippery.
Now why is it that the UFC does not pay the extra cost to have the logos made of the same octagon fabric and have them sewn in during manufacturing, thus eliminating the slipperiness of them?
I just do not understand that.
__________________
Dana White - "Fedor is a farce"
Fedor - Destroys Sylvia in 36 seconds
EMELIANENKOWNED!
Last edited by dagreat1 : 02-05-2007 at 01:11 AM.
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