Monday, September 24, 2007

Modnay

Things and things. I got to watch 76 on a bit of a tape-delay, since I had to go to a birthday party. My brother showed up at like midnight and we watched (fast forwarding) to about two am. We're dumb.
Forrest Griffin, to me, was the story of the night. He stepped in against a guy who was supposedly unbeatable and beat him. He took some shots and came back. One thing Forrest hasn't gotten credit for is his growth as a fighter...he's seeing the holes in his game and trying to fix them. Choking out Chute-Boxe's hero is a huge stride for Forrest.
Jon Fitch vs. Diego Sanchez was kind of boring. There was some decent wrestling, but Fitch basically lay'n'prayed Sanchez the whole time. Fightlinker made a good point: Diego seems to have forgotten that his job is to beat the shit out of people.
Machida was a lot more interesting, fighting a very tough opponent in Nakamura ("Hm, I bet I can beat Wanderlei Silva if I take off my gi top in the middle of a round...hey, I'm unconscious!"). Everyone bags on Lyoto Machida for being boring, but I rather liked his fight. He's pressing the action more, and he's very strong and technical.
Tyson Griffin vs Thiago Tavares was a war. I like Griffin's style, and the spinning escapes are crowd-pleasers as far as grappling is concerned. Dynamic level-changing and transitioning grappling gets the crowds on their feet, that's for sure.
Liddell vs Jardine was a little bit of a downer. Jardine brought a solid gameplan and took Chuck apart with kicks. The fact that Chuck couldn't counter his relatively simple leg-kick-to-left-hand attack seems disappointing. I think Chuck may be pissing blood for a week after all the liver shots he took. His side looked like a nice rare steak.
Overall a decent event. Short of what I'd want for my money, but ok. I hope their next few events are better. Otherwise the "goofy Internet websites" will be talking more shit. And I say that through gritted teeth.

2 comments:

MMA Critique said...

UFC 76 was a good card. I like how Machida turned up a bit and at least attempted to finish the fight. I like Shogun a lot but by the end of the second I was cheering for Forrest. Shogun getting choked out broke my mma heart. The thing is they made him out to be this unstoppable wrecking machine.

garth2 said...

Hell, I believed Shogun was the second coming before this fight. I saw him destroy people in Pride. We all did.
he's young though, and I bet he'll be back. I'm waiting for the first ex-Pride guy to take a hot runner for a different org, though. Wait for it...

 
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