July 20th, 2008 | by Dr J
- Well, Dana White was partially correct; we did get to see the best fighter on the planet fight last night. And while it wasn’t for free on SpikeTV, Fedor Emelianenko showed once again why he is the best MMA fighter around. Fedor bulldozed through Tim Sylvia in 36 seconds last night to capture the WAMMA heavyweight title belt on quiet the naysayers who said he hadn’t fought any tough competition recently. Taking only 10 seconds more than it took him to defeat Zulu, Fedor crumpled Sylvia to the mat and sank in a rear-naked choke victory without breaking a sweat.
- Andrei Arlovski and Ben Rothwell fought in what was probably the fight of the night as Andrei Arlovski showed excellent and improved boxing skills en route to a TKO victory in the third round. I give a lot of credit to Rothwell who showed excellent resiliency while staying toe-to-toe with “The Pitbull” after getting battered pretty heavily. Rothwell should take pride in knowing he stood with one of the best in his first fight against top level competition.
- Josh Barnett finally got his revenge against Pedro Rizzo by knocking out Rizzo in the second round. The fight started off pretty slowly as both fighters used the first round to size each other up and get their bearings. While not overly impressive, a solid victory for Barnett nonetheless.
- Renato Sobral won a unanimous decision victory over Mike Whitehead in what was an overall decent performance. Whitehead’s wrestling negated many of Sobral’s submission attempts and led to a technical battle with “Babalu” coming out ahead on points.
- Matt Lindland won a decision victory over Fabio Negao much like I predicted. It appeared that Lindland would end the fight early in the first round with a submission, but Negao was able to escape and the fight seemed to drag on from there.
- Once again again, Mike Pyle put in a solid performance and secured a first round submission victory over JJ Ambrose. While never flashy, Pyle is very consistent and should be getting a lot more recognition than he does.
- The Justin Levens vs Ray Lizama fight was completely scratched. The reason was because there was a delay starting the whole event. Are you kidding me? We got started late so you guys can’t fight? Come on.
- Overall, I was very impressed with the production quality of the first Affliction show. After the mess that occurred at the weigh-ins there was some questioning about how the actual event would unfold. The broadcast team of Frank Trigg, Jay Glazer, and John McCarthy was excellent and the three were actually a joy to listen to during the fights. They accompanied the fights instead of overpowering them.
- Oh yeah, and guys… skip the Megadeath concert next time please
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so i dont know who here watched all or any or the fights, but im hoping a few of you took advantage of the awesome link my brother BV put up last night for the Affliction card. i sat and watched just about all the MMA my mind could deal with, at points i was watching the UFC card, the Affliction card, having a conversation with my brother-in-law, and chatting with BV online lol. one fight Doc forgot to mention was my boy Mark Hominick who pulled out the armbar, thats right i said armbar in the first round no less. Mark more or less picked Savant Young apart on the feet till Young got the takedown where Hominick surprised me showing a very active guard moving from triangle attempts to omo-platas and back again and finally settling with the armbar after another failed triangle left him in a good spot to do so. the Fedor/Tim fight was nuts man, ive seen that fight before but last time i seen it Tim was played by a short fat kids who cant fight and Fedor was played by the highschool football jock who forgot his lunch money lol.
CAN I GET A HEY HEY HEY!!!!!ARLOVSKI!!!!!!!
AFFLICTION SHOW KICKED SO MUCH BUTT!!! GREAT NIGHT OF FIGHTS…
yeah man Arlovski looked great last night, i admit i was a bit worried that he was ether going to lose or have a very boring win although i did pick him to win a round 2 TKO on mmaplayground so something must have told me to pick that. im glad he proved wrong in thinking that his better days were behind him and heres hoping we get to see Arlovski vs. Fedor sometime soon.
Yeah. RJ my bad man. I completely forgot about the Hominick fight. Much props to him for an awesome fight. You called that one RJ.
Hominick definitely impressed me.
yeah i was happy as hell for that fight, when Young tapped i jumped up and was like “F*CK YA!!!” i knew Mark was working his ground game like a wild man but man he showed last night.
wow i was reading some message boards about last nights Affliction card and im reading things like “the UFC show was way better, all the guys from Affliction looked out of shape and the UFC guys looked like they should be in there” and “maybe people would give a sh*t to watch Fedor fight if he did a few sit-ups and lost the jellyroll belly” WHAT??? has it really come to that, do the fighters NEED to look like Lesnar to be interesting? and i knew the ring was going to be something people b*tched about and reading statements like “how the f*ck are you gonna have ultimate fighting in a ring” im glad it alienated some people lol. every time there is a big main stream moment in MMA i get reminded about how far the sport still need to go before the world considers it a true legit sport.
i too had a mma overdose yesterday,affliction was a very solid card i like all the matches but i dont like megadeath but they werent bad,i also like the announcing team they had.
Morning Comrades,
I hope all of you stepped up to the task and actually BOUGHT the Affliction card as I did. It was worth every penny. I’m eagerly awaiting some Pay-Per-View numbers to be posted regarding the success or failure of the event.
I agree with what many have already said. The Megadeath thing was definitely a little overdone, especially right before the intense anticipation of the main event.
As far the commentating goes, I felt that there way too many pauses and silences between the guys, but I guess that’s just chemistry that takes time to develop between the crew to notmake it so amateurish.
As much as Fedor comments and claims that he doesn’t realy follow or care about the rankings and what people thinks or say about him, I think it was quite obvious that he was sending a loud and clear message to Dana White and the UFC. I have never seen him so blatantly explosive and dominating at this stage in his career, against a guy who is considered top-level talent.
Tim Sylvia once again showed us that he is the best at losing to the best. I really can’t stand fighters who claim that they never quit, yet tap out instantly. I think Sylvia was expecting Fedor to try and take him down immediately like he did against Choy.
The only thing left for us to do now is wait and see if they can ever live up to something like this again anytime soon.