It was a fairly strong weekend of fights with three fairly solid, finish filled cards of both MMA and kickboxing. As always there’s plenty to talk about … but not a ton of it is profound or in depth. Time to read some tea leaves from this weekend’s plethora of events for the lessons to be mined.
“The Mauler” is ready for another crack at Jon Jones – Alexander Gustafsson did what he should’ve done as the second best light heavyweight in the world to someone who was marginally in the Top 15: blow their doors out. Gustafsson emphatically took apart Jimi Manuwa, who looked outmatched early, and then finished him quickly. Manuwa was a guy Gustafsson should’ve beaten fairly quickly and he did just that; he now has some momentum going into a Jones rematch instead of coming back right after beating him. Alex got the win, got a nice $100,000 on top of his win bonus and now walks into a summer PPV slot against Jones (provided he gets past Glover Teixiera).
Eduardo Dantas has some growth before we can call him a top 10 bantamweight … but not much – In six months Tyson Nam will look more like a fluke than anything else if Dantas can keep winning in spectacular fashion. He’s got Joe Warren the first weekend of May, apparently, so it’ll be a quick turnaround for him. Dantas has all the tools to be elite … he just needs to put them together all at once. He’s explosively athletic, a brilliant striker and his game on the mat is sizzling. He probably won the first round off his back Friday night; a year from now he should be ready to be called elite.
Mirko Cro Cop looks done – Bonjasky was in his final fight and looked like a guy who should retire … and so did the former Pride/K-1 standout. Cro Cop looks shopworn and his advisors should be telling him to get ready for retirement.
Brad Pickett probably will find himself in a similar spot at flyweight – I like Pickett and I love the way he fights. He’s never a dull fighter and you can be guaranteed a fun 15 minutes or less when he’s inside the cage. The problem is that his problems at bantamweight dealing with speed are exacerbated a weight class below. Neil Seery took a fight on short notice and was set up to be Pickett’s big splashy arrival at flyweight … and nearly took the fight from Pickett. With a full camp Pickett probably loses to the Irish veteran, too. Pickett is going to have a ton of trouble with anyone faster than him that can stop his takedowns, which the division is full of, and a rematch with Demetrious Johnson doesn’t look like anything but “Mighty Mouse” wrecking the British fighter in short order to avenge a WEC loss.
Unless something changes he looks like he’ll be the gatekeeper to the elite at 125, which is the same spot as he was in at 135.
Canelo got the right call – Alvarez lit up Angulo before getting the stoppage, of course, and while it may be a bit controversial it was the right thing to do. Angulo was on his way out and I view it as more of a mercy kill than anything else. Canelo looked in fine form and was going to get the finish sooner than later; Angulo had taken enough punishment. Sometimes it’s ok for a ref to let a guy have some mercy and not just keep taking abuse because he still has a couple rounds to spare.
Bellator heavyweights are fairly awful … but entertaining – Heavyweight fights as a rule are generally fairly terrible because the talent level isn’t there for the most part. There are only a handful of heavyweights that are comparable to fighters in other divisions … and nearly all of them are in the UFC. But heavyweights can be exciting for a lot of reasons … in their awfulness is a certain excitement that can’t matched because the potential for a finish is stronger the bigger you get in MMA. And we got a bunch of finishes at Bellator 111 in fairly interesting fashion.
