Jakro's MMA Musings

Honestly UFC Brasilia is full of fun match-ups, great card for a fight night. Main Event: Kevin Lee vs. Charles Oliveira This one is a delicious match-up. Two guys who are excellent finishers, both right at the periphery of contention in the division - you can just feel there will be a title contender emerging from this fight. The Gillespie fight did not really tell us much new things about Lee. It was largely a stand-up affair that seemed competitive until Lee put Gillespie's lights out. It does not deserve much mention here cause I am sure that you, like me, have seen that KO over and over again since. All we learned was that it seems that Lee has taken a step to the right direction under Zahabi. Jury is still out though, Gillespie did not really go for grapple-heavy, wearing down style of fight that would have been his advantage and the type of fight that usually beats Lee. With Charles Oliveira the situation is pretty similar. He has impressive streak of finishes, but he...

What can I say, it was a great card and I broke even so can't really complain. The main event kinda bombed, but at least even that was a tense affair. Let's break the event down a bit. Main Card Israel cannot feel good about his performance with Yoel, but what can you do when the opponent has dynamite in his hands but refuses to engage? The fight being so passive comes down not only to Israel respecting Yoel's power, but also Yoel respecting the danger of Israel's counter-striking. So in the end they just ended up staring each other a lot. Yoel ranted at the end but he can only look in the mirror for not going after it harder in the end, when it was clear he was getting outpointed for last three rounds. The co-main more than makes up for whatever the main event was lacking though. Joanna and Zhang put together one of the all-time great fights, with both of them absolutely battering each other. In the end Zhang edged it out by a split decision, but man I would not m...

For once I am ahead of schedule. Let's see if the 75 % correct pick rate of last two events holds up, I picked a lot of underdogs in this one. Main Event: Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero I am glad that things turned out as they did and Yoel gets one more shot for the title in his old age. Still, I think he is gonna end up falling short. Lot of guys have managed to outstrike and Yoel and Israel's striking is at completely different level to anything Romero has faced.  Of course, guy with as crazy physicality as Yoel has always has a chance to snatch a win in a fight, and in fact that is how Yoel gets most of his wins. His fights tend to be close until he just ends them with some hellacious blow. Still, it is hard to see him getting that against Israel.  Israel has beautiful head movement, excellent footwork and 7 inches of range over Yoel. Arguably Whittaker lost to Romero, but it was close enough for him to snatch a decision, and that was primarily thanks to Whitta...

I did not write any post-fight analysis last time, I didn't find a gap of time to write it, and I figured the little comments I made on Twitter were enough. Anyway, I might as well expand on them here this time and get this out of the way. UFC Norfolk had some controversy to talk about. Main Card By the time the main event started, I was already winning for the night, and as I really like Benavidez, I was hoping he would win despite my pick. Just as I was lecturing my girlfriend about how only Demetrious ever knocked Benavidez out, Figueiredo landed cross clean. So my sentence was finished "...and now he got KOd a second time." It was heartbreaking, raw emotion to see him destroyed after the fight. Technically, he was much the better fighter, and just like I called it, it was one of those fights where one guy is winning until they aren't. I don't know who won the first round, they both had their moments, but Benavidez was definitely landing a lot and it looke...