MMA HQ - Mixed Martial Arts News and Analysis

Man, oh man. UFC 58 was everything that I was hoping it would be.

I’m going to start off with the Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn fight. This fight lived up to its billing, and the better fighter won the fight. I don’t care what GSP looked like physically, St. Pierre won that fight with better technique and determination. GSP was poked in the eye early on in the first round, and was able to regroup, stay focused and finish the job he set out to do. Neither fighter “controlled” or “dominated” this fight but St. Pierre fought the better fight. By forcing Penn to the ground several times and pushing the pace of the fight, St. Pierre was able do what he needed to get his much desired rematch with Welterweight champion Matt Hughes.

I had predicted GSP would win by TKO in the second round, and if he had not been forced to look out of only one eye, I think that would have happened. Penn looked lazy and not interested in doing anything more than the minimum. Now, I’m just looking forward to the rematch between St. Pierre and Matt Hughes. I see Hughes losing his belt to GSP. St. Pierre has the standup skills, and Hughes has none. St. Pierre’s reach will allow him to keep Hughes at a distance. If you remember their first matchup, GSP was controlling Hughes through a majority of that first round, and I see the rematch as more of the same, only with a slightly different outcome.

The Rich Franklin vs. David Loiseau completely disappointed me, as I’m sure it did most of the people who watched it. I completely expected much more life and action from “The Crow” and what we saw was someone more interested in doing laps around the octagon than someone interested in fighting for the Middleweight belt. I had picked Loiseau to win sometime in the third round; instead, the fight should have probably been stopped by the doctor around that time. Loiseau just looked plain beat up like a punching bag. He continually let Franklin take his back and didn’t press the action at all.

Loiseau looked content to just throw some faily unimpressive high kicks from a distance, which caused him to slip a lot more that he was on his feet. I didn’t see one of Loiseau’s famed elbow’s until late in the third round. It was pretty obvious early on that Loiseau wasn’t able to compete with Franklin standing up, so I don’t know why he didn’t try to take Franklin to the ground and start throwing some of those close-in bunches and elbows. Whatever, I was very disappointed to say the least with this fight. Franklin is the champ and he proved it completely; he dominated the fight to the point that Loiseau had several 8 point rounds on the scorecards.

The last fight I want to discuss is the Yves Edwards vs. Mark Hominick fight. I have to say I was impressed with Hominick and I hope he gets some more opportunities in the reborn UFC lightweight division. Yves was only of the most heavily favored fighters on the card, and I don’t think anyone saw this fight ending how it did. To Hominick’s credit, he moved up to the 155 lb. class from 145 lb. and was able to defeat the “uncrowned” lightweight champ. I was sitting in front of my television watching the triangle choke unfold for about 45 seconds asking myself, “Why doesn’t Yves get out of there?” It was pretty obvious was Hominick was trying to setup, since it took him a while to secure the choke. With all of Yves’ experience I would think he should have been able to anticipate and prevent something like that fairly easily.

My last comment is not with any fights, but with the audience at the Mandalay Bay event center. I was completely disgusted with the “USA, USA” chants that rang out several times during the fights. Also, the booing when a fighter is giving his post-fight interview is uncalled for. GSP is a UFC fighter, not a Canadian fighter. He is a UFC fighter who happens to be born in Canada. For a bunch of dumb, drunk people on vacation in Las Vegas to disrespect a fighter like that is uncalled for. These are most likely people who only the night before were catching the Celine Dion concert just down the street. These are not MMA fight fans with any kind of knowledge. These are people who happened to catch an episode or two of the Ulimate Fighter and like Chuck Liddell’s mohawk.

Now, everyone, leave some comments and discuss amonst yourselves.