Last night offered more problems than answers for most of the fighters on the card. I’ll do my best to keep this short and sort out who goes where and does what after last nights fights in Newark, New Jersey. I’ll start from the top and work my way to the bottom of the card.
Anthony Johnson is easily one of the biggest losers in this fight despite being the biggest winner. He crushed Ryan Bader. It actually wasn’t a fight, it was more of a bar fight where the little brother drinks to much and tries to take on his dad. Dad just put him on his butt, smacked him once and asked, “Are you finished?” That was the fight. But now Rumble has fewer options than before.
HETAST JUST NU
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He can go back to beating people in fights that are impossible to promote as they are all, he’s going to win, what’s the point type fights. His last fight people said “what the fudge” so loudly that they had to change his opponent to Jimi Manuawa. And he still blasted him to pieces. All Rumble can do now is, go up in weight, go down in weight, beat up people he already beat up with ease or wait for up to 8 months. Maybe even longer. He can of course hope to be a replacement but fighting for a championship and training to fight DC or Jones is a really hard task given their styles and sizes. Those are his options.
Had Bader offered a fight up in any way, that might have opened up the door for a rematch, or a fight with the even more in limbo than anyone at 205, Gustafsson. So now we watch him beat up someone ranked #5-#100 where he is a favorite by -1600 or something similar. Who knows, best case, Jones decides to go heavy, Rumble gets a fair crack at DC and we are in this spot again, but much like the leak in the titanic, we will worry about that later. Unfortunately, the 205 division is looking slimmer and slimmer especially at the top.
Ryan Bader needs to fight Gustafsson, there is simply nothing left for him to do. He actually shouldn’t even get that fight. Maybe Shogun or Henderson or someone. I like Ryan Bader, he’s a nice guy, he puts his head down and works hard and he has without any question in my mind improved more than any fighter on this card and in the UFC.
However, that fight did more hurt his career than Aldo getting knocked out in 13 seconds. I say all this, having never stood a few feet from Rumble trying to hurt me, but this is what happened. He dove (not shot, dove) for a take down from halfway across the cage in a panic, he got pancake sprawled on. Instantly, he should have done something, flopped to his back being the worst option, got to his feet, drove forward being his best. Instead, he turtled, so, maybe that is a worse option than trying to claim guard. He looked for a kimura without an angle, leverage or momentum against a guy who was fresh and can lift a bus up so obviously, it didn’t happen, Bader then let go and he turtled up. He didn’t try to turn into him or stand, he didn’t try to push off the mat or buck his hips in the air, he just covered up.
Even Rumble seemed surprised as he waited, and waited and then when he seen Bader was only going to stay there afraid to get hit, Rumble gave him the old kangaroo chop and that was the fight. Maybe Rumble threw another punch just to see if Bader were pretending to be unconscious from his sudden narcolepsies, but he didn’t respond. It looked strange to me, but again, it’s a fight, things happen. But now Bader needs to take whatever fight they give him and he needs to take it within the next few days, weeks months whatever.
No back to the drawing board, no let me do some soul searching, if he wants to ever get a chance to fight again for a title and not just stay between the #5-#10 spot he needs to fight the moment they let him. Or else he becomes a name in the name pile that they can’t use to hype a fight and will only use when someone gets injured or when some new young stud is setting the world on fire and they need a spring board.
Ben Rothwell, he is another reminder of how thin the divisions are getting at the top. The fight that makes the most sense is, Stipe fights Werdum and Rothwell fights Cain. Those are easy to market fights. If Werdum can fight next month, that’s the best breakdown I can see. That gives Rothwell a few weeks to settle and then train and that puts that 4-week window (if all goes well) that it will take Cain to get back into the gym. 4 weeks I is a long time to lay there and wiggle your toes as an exercise, so Werdum should move on and if he can fight, he should fight Stipe now.
Ben winning essentially kicks Overeem (who on a poster, is the most marketable heavy weight) out of the picture. Brings Mark Hunt, Dos Santos and possibly Arlovski back into the picture as those are rematch potential. Either way, whether it’s because Big Ben doesn’t look like a guy with his hairy shoulders and all that you want showing up on the main page of your site as the champion or because he has a strange dance and style of fighting, there is no denying that unless someone like the three I mentioned beat him, he should get his first shot at the title and soon.
Josh Barnett is in the same mud puddle Bader is in. His striking wasn’t as good as he normal shows, the grappling or what little he tried to use was his own undoing and if he can, he should fight anyone they put in front of him as soon as possible. Josh is getting older and while his personality and pro-wrestling open workouts entertain fans, he hasn’t beaten anyone in 2 years (outside of a much smaller Dean Lister in a grappling tournament) that would excite fans to see him again.
If they give him a fight with a guy named Steve, he should take it. Punch the guy until he goes for a take down and then submit him. WarMaster needs a quality good looking win or else he falls behind a pile of fighters who fight more often and are more marketable. People forget, Josh has made some career blunders in his past, he lost the title and essentially bankrupt an organization because of poor choices. I’m fairly certain they pay extra close attention to his urine samples and what is in them and they are looking for a reason to say, he’s officially done.
If he had won convincingly, (he was doing alright striking with Ben, he’s just normally levels above that) he would have bought a lot more time. As of now, Overeem, Dos Santos, Mir or maybe a recovering Arlovski or Struve are the only fights for him. And those fights are really just to set those guys up for a bigger fight. Yes, Barnett has the capabilities to upset any of them, but if he doesn’t use those abilities soon, he might be doing a lot more pro-wrestling and a lot less cage fighting.
Jimmie Rivera is ready to fight some named opponents. His only loss is a decision, he throws power punches the entire fight and he tries to finish. His movement works, he listens to coaches well and he is similar to the person who set the bar for NJ fighters (Frankie Edgar) but doesn’t need to get a bloody nose before he decides to start fighting.
Iuri is a virtual unknown from the middle of nowhere islandville but he is an extremely tough capable fighter. Having Jimmie win this fight should really put him in line to go after anyone top ten and promise to be either potential dance or fire fight. I will guess that 95% of the time it’ll be a fire fight as he just rushes in with different angles and tries to finish.
Iuri Alcantara, he wins his night fight. He should also be top ten, he’s a very gifted relaxed athlete and he fought the wrong guy and still looked good. Next person he fights is getting kicked in the head. Fight is over. Who that person is, is not up to us, but they are getting kicked in the head.
Bryan Barberena won a fight he should have won and he won it when I’m guessing the company he works for wanted him to lose. Bryan figured out Sage’s attacks early, but he let him keep going for them. Sage has this style, sometimes he uses his legs, and that’s what he should have done, but usually when he is near the center of the cage he throws a right cross and a left jab. He throws them fast and with power, then he backs away. Bryan figured that out early and started catching Sage coming in.
He took more damage than he had to, but once the physical capabilities of Sage were nullified Bryan plain and simple. Broke him. What’s next for him now is a fight against a bigger name. Whether that name is a John Makdessi, Jim Miller or Evan Dunham, he takes to much damage before applying his game plan and needs to fight his fight earlier and not later. Then he can move to the people like Jury, Barboza and so on. People like Alvarez, Diaz, Cowboy won’t mentally break as fast and won’t stop punching him. (p.s. this picture below, that’s the look someone gives you after they shit in your cereal)
Sage Northcutt has a lot of things going for him. He is physically amazing, he is insanely nice and he looks good on posters as he looks like a video game character. What he needs is to go somewhere where he is not the star, get his ass kicked for awhile and find out what life is like when you spend an entire practice getting smashed into the ground and going home feeling like you should do something else with your life.
Sage is a gifted athlete who just found out what life is like. It sucks, and it’s mean and it doesn’t let you win. Not that anyone ever let Sage win but they seen his physical abilities and wilted. The UFC as you get up the ranks is not filled with people who wilt under pressure. Sage should have used way more kicks to measure distance and wear down Bryan then use his hands. Instead he only used a right straight and left jab about 5 times in a row, then against the cage he did the same thing and then went for the takedown. That seems to be his bread and butter, 1, 2 and then, four straights and a takedown.
Watch his fights, you’ll see it. So, that was his plan and once it didn’t work, it all went right out the window. Sage can easily come back and win fights based on physical abilities but if he doesn’t become mentally tough he will not do as well as people had hoped. Which sucks, because he really is a very genuine and nice person in a world filled with no so nice characters. Sage should find a weight that works for him, he should stick with that, and he should know going forward that people want to hurt him. He needs to vary all these movements that he has trained so hard to master and can easily be used by such a gifted athlete and he needs to fight someone that is #15-#25 and not let people throw him to the sharks for their amusement.
When he is 23 he will be a lot better. Problem is, they let him fight when he was 19 and that’s a lot time to go until 23 when mental toughness and such actually start setting in. I want to say, that’s not a knock against him. Guys in the top spots break all the time, heck last night Ryan Bader tried two things and when they didn’t work he looked mentally done. So, this isn’t a knock against him, it’s what it looks like and I think others agree.
Tarec Saffiedine used what works best for him. What he didn’t use were leg kicks but against Ellenberger that wouldn’t have been the smartest move. He used what almost seemed like an old school Muay Thai mentality. I am going to kick, you are going to block and I am going to keep doing it until it hurts to much for you to block. I’d have liked to see a lot more aggressive shield breaking. (as I learned it) as that would set up more fights.
He did let his guard down once and he got punched in the face for it. His kickboxing is better than others, I’d like to see him trust it more and I’d like to see him fight a Diaz brother or someone who isn’t going to tackle him and grind him out. He can deal with that type of fighter but I don’t think any of us care to see it.
Jake Ellenberger hasn’t been doing that wonderfully but outside of the Kevin Gastelum fight against the people he has fought; nobody has done well. Not one person on earth has fought, Thompson, Lawler and Rory and had success against all of them. A fight for Jake now should be a fight that lets people know he is either a fighter near the top or he’s not.
A fight against a Diaz or Cote, maybe probably not a Brown but he should not fight a Woodley, Condit or a Maia as honestly, he isn’t as good as the last four but could compete against the first two and it could be entertaining. He’s a very capable fighter that is being put in the positon of, you are either going to be a king here or fold. He has folded. For the next year he should stick to #8-#15 and work his way back into the #4-#8.
Side notes.
Randy Brown is like a young unknown Anderson Silva who will do well. I am interested to see how he does against an all out aggressive wrestler, but he has a lot of things going for him.
That Russian guy Alexander Yakovlev scary scary business. I am excited to see him fight again and hopefully soon.
Alex Caceres as of now, lives up to what he is capable of and Wilson Reis is terrifying on the mat.
I still can’t figure out where Natal fits in, as he is like a little Gonzaga. He performed outrageously well and then pretty crap even in victory and then amazing again and on and off and on and off. Once he puts together a consistent I need to watch this guy style. He’ll be something, last night, he was something, but winning a bunch of fights my decision and not in the grinding decimation style of Maia or DC is not going to get him headlining any cards anytime soon.
