My Take Radio

This past week­end the UFC brought us another action packed card that saw wel­ter­weights go to war in a highly con­tested bat­tle as well as the debut of “Lit­tle Nog”. I am going to share my thoughts on some of the fights. While the card was great, there are some fights that just need to be discussed.

Kendall Grove vs. Jake Rosholt– To me this fight was a must win for Kendall, who has given us some rather lack­lus­ter per­for­mances  as of late. After a fast start by Rosholt, which cen­tered on his wrestling, he got caught by a beau­ti­ful and smooth tri­an­gle choke by Kendall.

Rosholt going for the slam

Aloha Motherf*cker!!

Mar­cus Davis vs. Ben Saun­ders- I am a big fan of Mar­cus Davis and was expect­ing a great per­for­mance from him. Saun­ders used his davas­tat­ing knees as well as the thai clinch to gain the K.O in round one. I was inpressed that Saun­ders stopped Davis and in such a dom­i­nant fash­ion. Saun­ders put the wel­ter­weight divi­sion on notice with his performance.

Saun­ders dis­arms “The Irish Hand Grenade”

Phil Baroni vs. Amir Sadol­lah–Phil Baroni made me a fan because of the mas­sive amounts of shit talk­ing he does as well his excit­ing fight­ing style. I expected him to put Sadol­lah to sleep early. I was extremely sur­prised by Sadollah’s muay thai onslaught which was effec­tive to keep­ing Baroni from get­ting in close to do any dam­age. Baroni was gassed by round two. Baroni always starts strong but gets gassed in the later rounds and it always costs him. I admire the heart he dis­played in the ass whoop­ing he took, but would have pref­fered the vic­tory instead.

Amir work­ing the clinch

Anthony John­son vs. Josh Koscheck-Update: After review­ing some video footage it appears that the poke hap­pened prior to the knee. Nonethe­less it still looked sus­pect but at least now I have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what went down. I still like Kos and John­son though. Both guys are great fight­ers.

I was really expect­ing a war between these two awe­some ath­letes, but what I got was eye pokes and a knee to a downed oppo­nent which put a blem­ish on the fight.  First, I’ll start with the knee that John­son threw to a downed Josh Koscheck which “allegedly” hit him in the eye. Let’s say that that last time I checked YOU DON’T HAVE AN EYE ON YOUR FUCKING FOREARM!!!! While I admit that the knee was ille­gal, there was zero con­tact to the eye and the replays clearly showed it.  Sec­ond round saw an eye poke from Koscheck to John­son which stopped the fight briefly. Koscheck ended up get­ting Johnson’s back and chok­ing him out. Dur­ing the post fight inter­view Kos made it clear he wanted to fight Dan Hardy before Hardy fought GSP. Over­all the B.S with the eye pokes ruined the fight for me. I hope John­son bounces back and gets another shot at Koscheck.

Koscheck with the choke.

For­rest Grif­fin vs. Tito Ortiz- Tito and For­rest deliv­ered as expected, yet the fight had its’ share of frus­trat­ing moments. If you are a fan of Tito’s then you will be frus­trated with the fact he got gassed in round 2 and really did noth­ing in round 3. If you’re a fan of For­rest you will be happy with his per­for­mance, yet annoyed he couldn’t fin­ish Tito off. I fall in the cat­e­gory of being a fan of both guys. One thing that tends to get under my skin is the fact that when­ever Tito loses he chooses to list any injuries he’s obtained in route to his fight and usu­ally blames them for the loss. While I refuse to believe that he’s lying or bull­shit­ing, it does become an annoy­ance for fans. I think that if he lost ‚well, he lost which is no big deal as both of you are now 1–1. Both of these guys want a rematch to set­tle it once and for all.

For­rest work­ing the leg kicks.

Fore­cast calls for rain­ing elbows

Rumors of course are run­ning ram­pant with spec­u­la­tion that they will coach the next sea­son of The Ulti­mate Fighter. I think that the fight­ers on the show would ben­e­fit from the coach­ing of both of these guys.

Over­all the card was enjoy­able, minus the issues with Koscheck and the unfin­ished busi­ness between For­rest & Tito. On the bright side though their third fight should be awesome.

Feel free to share your com­ments below.

Image Credit — UFC.com

This Sat­ur­day the UFC presents Ortiz v Grif­fin II live on pay per view. The last time Ortiz and Grif­fin fought it was an excit­ing fight with great per­for­mances from both guys. Ortiz is a guy that you either really love or really hate. His wars with Ken Sham­rock are leg­endary as are his taunts and pre fight hype. For­rest on the other hand is such a like­able guy with his self dep­re­cat­ing humor and well rounded fight game that it makes it hard for me to root against him. Both of these guys are com­ing in with some­thing to prove Grif­fin is com­ing off his loss to Ander­son Silva and Tito is com­ing off a long layoff/surgery/spat with Dana.Tito looks focused and reju­ve­nated and For­rest is .….your typ­i­cal For­rest lol. For­rest always has excit­ing fights and to me win or lose has made his mark in the UFC. 

Nor­mally I’d have a pick for this fight but my appre­ci­a­tion for fight­ers tal­ents makes this a tough call.

Here are the other great fights as well as the promo for Ortiz v Grif­fin. My picks are in Red for some of the fights

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb2r86D3zFg]

MAIN CARD

• For­rest Grif­fin vs. Tito Ortiz–No Pick
• Anthony John­son vs. Josh Koscheck– “Rum­ble” Johnson
• Phil Baroni vs. Amir Sadol­lah–Baroni — How can you not root for “The NY Bad-Ass”
• Luiz Cane vs. Anto­nio Roge­rio Nogueira–NOG
• Dustin Hazelett vs. Karo Parisyan– Hazelett

PRELIMINARY CARD (un-aired) — Some fights will air on Spike TV @ 9pm est

•  Mar­cus Davis vs. Ben Saun­ders–Davis
• Paulo Thi­ago vs. Jacob Volk­mann–Thi­ago
• Kendall Grove vs. Jake Rosholt–Kendall
• Brian Fos­ter vs. Brock Lar­son–Lar­son
• Fabri­cio Camoes vs. Caol Uno–Uno
• Jason Dent vs. George Sotiropou­los–Sotiropou­los