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Jul
29
Blood, Sweat, & Griffin: A Belated Recap
July 29, 2008 |
In a 5 round war Forrest Griffin achieved the ultimate; he became Light- Heavyweight Champion. Forrest was most impressive in his 2nd round dismantle of Rampage. During the 2nd round Forrest tore Rampage apart with vicious leg kicks. Rampage’s pain was quite evident. Overall I am very disappointed in Rampage’s show. I found it hard to believe that Forrest Griffin’s kicks had such a great effect given Rampage’s camp includes Michael Bisping and Cheick Kongo. On my personal scorecard I scored it a tie. I gave Griffin a 10- 8 second round and another round, while scoring 3 rounds 10-9 for Rampage…
The co- main event was less than impressive. Patrick Cote did win the fight in my opinion. Almeida was horrible in the last 2 rounds. Almeida lacked the needed conditioning to take the fight to the ground and when Almeida couldn’t take it to the ground his stand up was not even close to being able to win him a round. Cote showed a tremendous amount of improvement since his quick submission loss to Lutter in the TUF finale. I believe that Cote’s takedown defense was a huge reason why Cote won. The Predator should have let his hands fly a little more in the 3rd round. I believe that Almeida still would not have gotten the takedown and Cote could have been able to score the knockout had he swung more leather.
Gleison Tibau looked very good in his fight against Joe Stevenson up until Stevenson secured the guillotine submission. In my opinion Joe Stevenson needs to improve his stand up if he wants to make another run at the title.
Tyson Griffin looked excellent in his annihilation of Marcus Aurelio. The only concern for me was when Griffin took the fight to the ground Griffin seemed to come close to falling into a submission but always managed to escape. Griffin showed great improvement in his standup game and repetitively connected to Aurelio’s head, ultimately winning him a decision.
Melvin Guillard exhibited his greatest dominance to date in his fight with Dennis Siver. The young assassin is back and looked his best yet. I believe that Guillard overwhelmed his opponent with his power and athletic prowess. Guillard truly showed he deserves to be in the UFC after his last two losses to Joe Stevenson and Rich Clementi.
Koscheck displayed another athletic beat-down in his destruction of Chris Lytle. Koscheck showed better standup again, but what was truly impressive was his ground attack with elbows in tremendous amounts toward Lytle’s head, maybe a result of his wrestling being out done by the present champ St. Pierre in his last fight. If I was a welterweight I would fight Koscheck soon because he is only going to grow in leaps and bounds for years to come.
Overall the event was good. I wish that Cote would have pulled the trigger and finished the fight. As a fan I was disappointed with Rampage losing, however Griffin has showed tremendous gains since his loss to Jardine. Look for Griffin to do well in the future. Machida may present a problem. Machida did beat Tito Ortiz who beat Griffin but that was awhile ago and Griffin v Machida would probably be a very tough and interesting fight. Fans be on the watch for Tyson Griffin who I believe is a contender in the Lightweight division.
