Last night, after some B.S with the cable com­pany, I had the chance to sit down and watch UFC 109. Before I get into the fights, I must say that the card was very good and a lot of the fights had sur­pris­ing fin­ishes. I also stand by the fact that UFC has the best event prepa­ra­tion in the game today. Strike­force take notes.

I will give my thoughts on the main card since I did not get to watch the the prelims.

Matt Serra (16–6) v Frank Trigg (19–7)

Every­one I spoke to expected this fight to go the dis­tance. But after the trash talk­ing and the fact that this was a make or break fight for either one of these guys, you knew a lot was on the line. The fight started as you’d expect with Trigg keep­ing Serra away with punches and Serra work­ing the body. Then the unex­pected hap­pened — not a mir­a­cle sub­mis­sion or a ground bat­tle but a big right hand from Matt Serra that lev­eled Trigg. Serra cap­i­tal­ized on the K.O with a pound­ing and the ref stopped it.

Matt Serra is a favorite fighter of mine because he is tena­cious and has a real “no quit” atti­tude that makes him fun to watch. It helps that he’s a fel­low New Yorker, but let’s not let small details like loca­tion take away from the fact that he always enter­tains and sur­prises me.

Serra by K.O.

Dan Miller (11–2, 1NC) v Demian Maia (11–1)

Demian Maia came in to this fight with some­thing to prove after his KO loss to Mar­quardt, and Dan Miller was a great oppo­nent for him on his come­back trail.

First round was a healthy mix of standup from Miller with some take­down attempts from Maia. There was an inad­ver­tent strike to the groin that Maia deliv­ered, but the pace was solid and it was a great first round for both guys.

Sec­ond round had more strik­ing from Maia, but noth­ing that really changed the tide of the fight. Miller con­tin­ued work­ing the strik­ing game but couldn’t hit his stride which annoyed the crowd. Why does the crowd boo this really solid chess match? It bog­gles my fuck­ing mind.

Third round had Maia really work­ing on some take­downs. Miller con­tin­ued to land solid shots and even cut Maia but it was not enough.

Maia wins by Decision

Brian Stann v Phil Davis

Phil Davis at first glance reminded me Jon “Bones” Jones due to his ath­leti­cism and explo­sive­ness. Stann gave him some trou­ble in the first half of the round, but Davis woke up and put in some work in the sec­ond and  third rounds to take the fight via unan­i­mous decision.

Davis by Decision

 

Paulo Thi­ago (12–1) v Mike Swick (14–3)

Swick was sub­sti­tut­ing for Josh Koscheck here and wanted to avenge the losses of fel­low A.K.A mem­bers to Thi­ago. Swick and Thi­ago exchanged a bit in the first, but nei­ther fighter dis­played a clear advan­tage. The sec­ond round started fairly the same but Thi­ago dropped Swick with a left and applied a darce choke for sub­mis­sion victory.

Thi­ago by Sub­mis­sion (Darce Choke)

 

Chael Sonnen(25–10-1) v Nate Mar­quardt (32–8-2)

Chael Son­nen came into this fight with a great per­for­mance against Yushin Okami and Mar­quardt was expect­ing a title shot after this vic­tory. Son­nen proved to be the spoiler and pro­ceeded to use his supe­rior wrestling to bully Mar­quardt for the entire fight.  Son­nen may have got him­self into the title pic­ture with these last two great performances.

Chael Son­nen by Decision

 

Mark Cole­man (16–9) v Randy Cou­ture (17–10)

Cole­man gets props off the bat for com­ing out to Lil’ Wayne. Both of these leg­ends have made some of  the great­est con­tri­bu­tions to the sport of MMA, and at the end of the day their per­for­mances will some­thing we can all remem­ber. Cou­ture came out and pro­ceeded to bully Cole­man into the fence in typ­i­cal Cou­ture fash­ion. Cole­man had no answer for Randy’s offense and Randy eas­ily took the first round. Cou­ture came into the sec­ond round using the same game plan and scored a take­down and the sub­mis­sion vic­tory via rear naked choke.

Randy Cou­ture by Sub­mis­sion (Rear Naked Choke) 

It wouldn’t be a post fight inter­view with­out some fire­works and those fire­works came in the form of the one and only Tito Ortiz who made some dis­parag­ing remarks to Cole­man. I am sure what­ever Tito said was far from cor­dial when it ends with Cole­man say­ing “Fuck you, Tito” and “Any­time douchebag”. I am sure Dana saw some dol­lar signs with a poten­tial Cole­man v. Ortiz match.

Over­all it was a solid card with some great fights. Randy Cou­ture con­tin­ues to improve with age and is a his best every time he fights. He is still dan­ger­ous at 205 lbs. and poses a threat in the divi­sion. Con­grats to him and Cole­man for going in there and putting on a great show. Noth­ing but respect for those two legends.

On Feb­ru­ary 6, 2010, leg­ends will col­lide as the UFC presents UFC 109 —  Relent­less live on PPV. Randy Cou­ture vs. Mark Cole­man is your main event. As an MMA fan, when you hear the nick­names “The Nat­ural” and “The Hammer” you know you are in for a good fight. This fight between two Vet­eran fighters, to me, is a make or break for Cole­man, given his recent string of oppo­nents. He’s cur­rently 1–1 in the UFC and a loss to Cou­ture would surely put his future in ques­tion, but if there is any­thing that has been learned in the past,  it is that leg­ends can never be counted down and out at any point. This fight has the mak­ings of being an instant clas­sic and given it’s his­toric nature (this will be the first time these two Hall of Famers have ever fought),  it will be watched by mil­lions of eager peo­ple, includ­ing me.

I am not mak­ing a pick on the leg­ends’ main event fight because it would be way too tough, but here are the other notable fights on the card as well as my picks (in orange):

Main Card

Mid­dleweight bout: Nate Mar­quardt vs. Chael Son­nen — Mar­quardt

Wel­ter­weight bout: Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thi­ago — “Quick” Swick is dan­ger­ous when he is focused. Going with Swick on this one.

Mid­dleweight bout: Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller-  I am a big fan of Maia. The guy has incred­i­ble tal­ent. I say Maia by Sub­mis­sion (of course).

Wel­ter­weight bout: Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg — I am a big fan of both of these guys but I have to go with my boy from NY.  Matt Serra

Spike TV Card

Light­weight bout: Mac Danzig vs. Justin Buch­holz — Danzig

Light­weight bout: Melvin Guil­lard vs. Ron­nys Tor­res — Got to go with “The Young  Assas­sin” Guil­lard here.

Watch UFC 109 live on PPV on Feb­ru­ary 6th. Check you guide for listings.

Bot­tom line — Cou­ture is smart — dan­ger­ously smart. He knows that a younger fighter with bet­ter reach is putting him down if the match is a strik­ing game. He also knows that he has a bet­ter wrestling game than Vera. Answer: keep him locked up and stay on him; this way Vera can­not take advan­tage of his lethal kicks.

Round 1: Vera tries to explode on Cou­ture from the start and Randy puts him on the cage and basi­cally keeps him there the whole round. Cou­ture wants Vera on the ground but Bran­don is excel­lent at take­down defense. Round 1 fin­ishes mostly uneventful.

Round 2: Again Cou­ture has Vera on the cage but the ref keeps seper­at­ing them. About halfway through, Vera lands a seri­ous kick into Couture’s ribs that stag­gers him. Vera unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally does not fol­low up on it and winds up on the cage again. Gotta won­der if Vera’s respect for Cou­ture includes some fear.

Round 3: Final round and Vera again puts his kicks to work, going at the same sore spot in the right set of Couture’s ribs. Again, he does not go in for the kill. Cou­ture locks up on the cage, but Vera man­ages to get a take­down with a full mount. He makes very few strikes dur­ing the mount and fails at a sub­mis­sion attempt. The fight fin­ishes with both men on their feet; a short exchange and the round ends.

Deci­sion: the judges unan­i­mously give it to Cou­ture and Vera goes and sulks out­side of the ring. Cou­ture clearly did his home­work on Vera. He said it him­self that it was not the most excit­ing fight, but he did what he had to. Before the fight Vera quoted the old adage “to be the man, you have to beat the man.” I guess Vera knows what he did not do. I per­son­ally do not agree with the deci­sion, but I am also not get­ting paid to say who won a fight.

I’m avail­able to set­tle our agree­ment next week.

EDITOR NOTE (11/15/09): Look­ing around the net, it seems that I am not the only one that dis­agrees with the judges, but as Akuma said to me last night, “You gotta win your fight — do not let it go to deci­sion.” Cou­ture knew the way things were going that the judges would go with the favorite. Vera gave the fight away, despite what I think of things. Also gotta say that I lost some respect for Vera due to his very juve­nile behav­ior after the rul­ing. You wanted this fight — you gave mad respect to Cou­ture in and out of the ring; shake that man’s hand and get a rematch. Instead you sulk in a cor­ner like a child. Be mad at the judges, not Randy Couture.