UFC 121: Lesnar vs Velasquez

Main card
Heavyweight Championship bout: Brock Lesnar (c) vs Cain Velasquez
Welterweight bout: Jake Shields vs. Martin Kampmann
Welterweight bout: Diego Sanchez vs. Paulo Thiago
Light Heavyweight bout: Tito Ortiz vs. Matt Hamill
Heavyweight bout: Brendan Schaub vs. Gabriel Gonzaga

Preliminary card (Spike TV)
Middleweight bout: Court McGee vs. Ryan Jensen
Middleweight bout: Patrick Côté vs. Tom Lawlo

Preliminary card
Welterweight bout: Mike Guymon vs. Daniel Roberts
Lightweight bout: Sam Stout vs. Paul Taylor
Middleweight bout: Chris Camozzi vs. Dong Yi Yang
Heavyweight bout: Jon Madsen vs. Gilbert Yvel



Thoughts?

This card is stacked. I am not too excited to see Sanchez vs. Thiago, but the rest of the main card looks awesome.

Shaub could take a huge step forward with a win. Sheilds could get a title shot with a win, but I am sure that Kampman doesn't want to be a stepping stone to a UFC Rookie. Jake Shields wins, by unamouis decission.

I fuckin hate Tito and I hope he gets embarrassed by Hamil.

Brock Lesnar (c) vs Cain Velasquez could be the most anticpated fight in the history of the HW Div. I know I have been jacked up for this fight since it was annouced. Cain will be the most tech striker, but I give the wrestling advantage and once Brock starts raining down blows from the top, it is all over. I know Cain is Undefeated so far and I know that he has a great collage wrestling career, but Brock is another animal in there. Brock wins via TKO in the 3rd RD.

Saying this card is stacked is an understatement. Top to bottom, this is a VERY solid card with the undercard probably better than the UFC 120 main card.

Lesnar/Velasquez is obviously the big draw on the card. I think a little too much is made of Lesnar's wrestling at this point, as I think Cain's wrestling is just as good from the way he controlled Big Ben. On their feet, Cain is more technical with knockout power as well (ask Big Nog). However, some things just transcend skills, and Brock's physical size, speed, quickness, and strength are probably going to put him on top and pounding away on Cain.

Shields/Kampmann has the winner to face GSP, in other words, UFC are trying to name Jake Shields the new #1 contender when they announced this match. I think his fight with Hendo was rather boring, but he's shown in the past that he has good stand-up and against someone that lacks the power that Hendo had, I think he'll be more willing to stand and bang. I've got Shields stopping Kampmann.

Sanchez/Thiago is only interesting to me because Diego went back to Greg Jackson. While he's only been there a short time and probably hasn't had much time to change himself much yet, I always find myself rooting for Jackson fighters. I hope he looks better against Thiago or he'll put himself in a position where he might get released if he losses another one after Thiago.

Ortiz/Hamill pits two guys who know each other well from their days with TUF. In the bookie thread, you talked about how Tito called him soft and whatnot, and that's exactly the reason I put in a small bet for Tito. Hamill IS soft and IS an emotional guy who has to fight the guy that help trained him. Tito on the other hand has a lot of experience and feelings won't get in his way when fighting. While Hamill is clearly the better fighter, Tito has a better mental game and has a chance of taking this.


Schaub/Gonzaga is a fight that I feel rather confident in saying someone will get KO/TKOed. I can't tell you who (hoping GG is on his back), but I can tell you someone is going down.

The SpikeTV prelim card has 2 interesting matchups IMO. Court McGee, our TUF winner, finally steps into the octagon. Then we have the Canadian Patrick "The Predator" Cote trying to make his way back from injury and up the ladder in the MW division. I see Court and Cote taking home wins.

On the prelim card, the one fight that stand sout most is Stout/Taylor. I can't believe this didn't make any of the cards. When has Sam Stout never been in an entertaining fight against a fellow striker? I would've put this on the PPV card over Schaub/GG or over McGee/Jensen on the Spike card. Furthermore, Dong Yi Yang and Gilbert Yvel both seem like lower main card guys, hence why I think them on the undercard makes it better than the actual UFC 120 main card. Unfortunately for Yvel, he's facing a wrestler and we all saw what happened against Big Ben. He'll either get a KO of the night, or he'll get controlled for 3 rounds and look embaressingly bad.

Tito didn't say Hamil is a soft fighter, he said he has a "soft head" because def people have a soft head. Not only did he insult Hamil, he insulted the entire def comminty. I hope he busts up Tito's head and then talks trash about it in sign launge. I want to see him knock some brail bumps into Tito's face. I want to see him spell out Fuck You across Tito's forehead. I want him to emabrass Tito so badly that he can't show his face or his mouth in the UFC ever again. I really wish Chuck had one more KO left in him. It would be so awesome to see a clearly declining Liddel KO Tito's dumb ass one more time.

One other thought on Cain: I also question his chin. He was rocked by Kongo twice. I did recover and obviously won the fight, but he was rocked so hard, his knee's almost gave out. If Lesner rocks him like that, you can be damn sure he will be all over him before he has a shot in hell at recovering. When Lesner hit Couture, he didn't even land the blow full on, but he hit him hard enough to damage him and he was on him like a animal on wounded prey. Lesner is so powerfully, he doesn't even have to fully connect to fuck someone up. Lesner also answered any questions about his chin when he took the very best Carwin had and survived the RD.

WTF HAPPENED TO BROCK!?!?!?!?!!?!?!!!!?!!?!?!!?!11one!!!!!?!!?!?! *angry face*

oooa..

emmm. yeah brock lost..

damn.



Not to worry though I feel this loss could propel Brock to become bigger and stronger, a kind of reality check for himself.

I Am Rocco wrote:

Not to worry though I feel this loss could propel Brock to become bigger and stronger, a kind of reality check for himself.

I don't think he can become any bigger or stronger If he does, he'll just need to cut to make the HW division.

So to start off...I missed the Spike card which I'm pissed about. I hear Lawlor/Cote was boring, but McGee had a monster comeback on Jensen. Also, as predicted, it seems like Sam Stout had another hell of a fight. Now onto the main card:

Schaub/Gonzaga was interesting. I expected a pure striking match, I got it. I expected someone to get knocked out...that didn't quite happen. Schaub hits hard, hits often, and just outpointed GG last night. While his closer exchanges weren't as impressive as his outside work, he did take a few shots in close and GG is a strong dude, so I'll respect Schaub's chin a little more after the fight. Schaub moves up the HW ladder, GG continues to drop, now slightly below gatekeeper level.

Ortiz/Hamill would've otherwise been boring had it not been for the hype for the fight. Ortiz flashed some more leg kicks, but that was really it for the fight. Not much landed on their feet and the only notable action was when Hamill got the takedowns, though his GnP wasn't all that great afterwards. It was like a slightly less active version of Sonnen's GnP, just a lot of movement and Tito was never really in any danger of having the fight stopped.

Sanchez/Thiago was what I expected it to be, a chance for Diego to get back to being Diego and he was. In a short time with Jackson, he looks like he's regained what made him a rising star in MMA (seems like so many years ago, even though he's still rather young). Most notably that slam of Thiago where he just picked him up, ran around the octagon screaming, before dropping him hard. In addition to the grappling work on the ground, I also liked that he was relentless with his attack, most notably at the end of the fight. It was clear he had won the fight with something like 15 seconds left on the clock, but with full mount, he didn't just sit there and wait for the win, he went HARD for the stoppage.

Shields/Kampman...man...Shields looked GASSED in the second round already. If this truly was for the #1 contender to GSP, Shields is in a world of trouble if he gasses after 1 round where he was the one dominating. He won, he showed his grappling, but he also showed that the weight cut was way too much for him. For someone who was suppose to be able to compete in either WW or MW, he sure isn't showing it right now. I'll give him 1 more fight at WW (whether it be against GSP or not) to determine if he should go back to MW, but for now, it's not looking good for him.

Lesnar/Cain...WOW. It was like shades of Shane Carwin again, but Cain took his time and picked Lesnar apart. Firstly, I'm surprised Lesnar just went running at Cain to start the fight, though he did land a nice flying knee. However, as I mentioned in my previous post here, I believe Cain's wrestling is just as good as Lesnar's and he showed it. When Lesnar first went in for the takedown, he stuffed it. When Lesnar finally got him down, he popped right back up. Then he took down Lesnar, which led to Lesnar trying to get up by spinning around in circles (he made himself dizzy ), and that scramble, resulting from Cain's takedown, was what opened up the strikes for Cain. Final remark on Cain, his striking is crazy accurate...like...crazy accurate. Looking forward to Cain/JDS, it's a better match-up than Lesnar/JDS would've been. I like Cain in that fight, but both guys come in with heavy hands (it's the HW division, I wouldn't expect much less) and anything can happen with these 2 up and coming stars.

Main card
Heavyweight Championship bout: Brock Lesnar (c) vs Cain Velasquez: Brock came out like a bull. He came out throwing strikes and knee's, and he scored a couple of TKD's. After he hit the first TKD, I thought hear we go. I was thinking that was the begining of the end for Cain, but Cain got up fairly easily. Cain landed a ton of great strikes, but Brock took him down again. Cain got up even faster that time and I knew that Brock was not going to be able to bully Cain with is wrestling. After that TKD, Cain really started to let his hands go. Brock got blasted, but he seemed to survive the first of Cain's furious striking. Brock used the cage to work his way back to his feet, but then Cain hit him with a hard, short upper-cut that really rocked him. Lesnar went spinning across the cage, trying to find his legs, but Cain was right on him. Cain knew that he hurt him and he kept raining down hard blows until the ref finally stepped in. I was surprised that Cain won, but I was completely shocked by how he won. I never would have thought he would be finishing Lesnar in the 1st. I thought that if the fight was going to end that soon, it would be Lesnar doing the finishing, but I was wayyyyyy wrong and Cain is a force in that cage. Cain vs. JDS should be a good fight. Lesnar really needs to work on his striking. Randy Couture said that he needs to spar more and get use to gettting punched in the head. When Brock is doing the punching, he is OK, but when he is getting unloaded on, he doesn't seem to know what to do about it. Lesnar will be back and he will be a better fighter. This time, I think Lesnar should get a title shot the old fashion way. The way that Cain got his. Start at the bottom and start winning fights. Work his way up the ladder and become a better fighter.


Welterweight bout: Jake Shields vs. Martin Kampmann: Shields scored many TKD's and he kept pressure on Kampman all the time. He barely gave him room to breath, but Kampman did a great job of avoiding Sub's and was able to get up. Kampman was totally out striking Shields, but, toward the end of the 3rd, it seemed as though Kampman was trying to prove a point by fighting the way Shields wanted to fight. He had a great chance of winning had he stuck to the stand up. Sheilds was completely gassed by the start of the 3rd and he looked like he was going to pass out at the end of the fight. It was obvious that the cut really hurt him. He said as much in a post fight interview, but he said he did not want to use that as an excuse. He said he made some mistakes in preperation for this fight and clearly the cut took away some stamina. Dana White said that he did not want to hear about cutting weight. He said he is in the UFC now and it is his job to do so, and I agree with that. If he is going to fight GSP next, he better be better then he was last night.

Welterweight bout: Diego Sanchez vs. Paulo Thiago: I was kinda bored with this one until Sanchez hit that awesome powerslam in the 2nd RD. That seemed to have woke him up and it woke me up. This was actually a very good fight. There were some great scramble's, Sub. Attempts and some striking. It was a well rouned MMA fight and it took home FOTN

Light Heavyweight bout: Tito Ortiz vs. Matt Hamill: I can't tell you how fuckin excited I was to see Tito get his ass beat again. Tito has now lost 4 straight and is 0-4-1 in is last 5 fights. Tito actually looked pretty good with is stand up, but he didn't do much damage with it. Tito use to be known for his "World Class Ground and Pound" but he did not even score a TKD in this fight. You can do the pound if you can't get the other dude on the ground. Matt Hamil beat Tito the way Tito use to beat people. Hamil landed way more damaging shots and he had 3 great TKD's. The last TKD in the 3rd really slammed the door on Tito's punk ass. I hope this is the last time we see that overrated jackoff in the UFC. Let Strikeforce have him.

Heavyweight bout: Brendan Schaub vs. Gabriel Gonzaga: I have heard so many great things about Zaga's BJJ, but I can't recall ever seeing him use it. He always decides to strike and he took a beating from Shaub. Zaga never did get out of the blocks and he stopped throwing his leg kicks for some reason. He landed 2 or 3 brutal kicks that clearly hurt Shaub, but then he stopped throwing them. This fight turned into a Boxing match with Shaub completely out striking Zaga.

Preliminary card (Spike TV)
Middleweight bout: Court McGee vs. Ryan Jensen: Jensen came out on fire and rocked McGee early, but McGee survived and then dominated. He ended the fight with a head and arm choke.


Middleweight bout: Patrick Côté vs. Tom Lawlo: This fight was extremely boring. Lawlor got Cote down, kept him down, and beat him down. Cote could do nothing at all to get off the matt, but there was not a whole lot of damage done by Lawlor. He clearly outscored Cote, but it was not very exciting. What happened to Cote? He goes from being in a fight with Silva to losing a Prelim fight.

Preliminary card
Welterweight bout: Mike Guymon vs. Daniel Roberts: This fight ended with a pretty cool submission and Sub of the Night

Quote :

Dana White said that he did not want to hear about cutting weight. He said he is in the UFC now and it is his job to do so, and I agree with that. If he is going to fight GSP next, he better be better then he was last night.

True is some respects, but not completely IMO. When Shields came in, he wanted to compete at MW, but the UFC wanted him at WW. So had he been given a match where he wanted to be at, it wouldn't have been an issue.

Quote :

What happened to Cote? He goes from being in a fight with Silva to losing a Prelim fight.

Multiple major surgeries and a 2 year layoff. Hell, it took Shogun some time to regain his form and Shogun is a much better fighter than Cote.

That slam is still awesome. I get what you are saying about Shields, but he knew about the fight at 170 for how long? I am glad he won and I am glad that he did not come out and say the that cut hurt him. He said as much, but you had to read between the lines a little. Tito didn't make weight that night, so I am guessing Dana is tired of guys not making weight and Shields was kinda caught in the middle a little bit. Who is the 185 fighter that has missed weight around 4 fights in a row? I remember him fighting Matt Hughes recently, but I can't think of his name.

He didn't really fight Hughes recently, but Thiago Alves is the guy who keeps missing weight.

That is the guy I was trying to think of. There are too many damn Brazilian names to remember. Paulo Thiago, Thiago Alves, Thiago Silva. Enough with the Thiago already.

I normally remember them by name, but I can't put the right faces on each person all the time