UFC 126 Results: Silva vs. Belfort Post-Fight Recap and Analysis|Today's World News

UFC 126 Results: Silva vs. Belfort Post-Fight Recap and Analysis

Sunday, February 6, 2011|

Spicy News

It's been a long weekend:a late-night train ride, an early morning courthouse wedding, and a pack of drunks shouting over the fights. So maybe it was my more-than-usual curmudgeonry, but outside of Jon Jones undressing Ryan Bader, UFC 126 had let me down leading into the main event. Miguel Torres put on one of the most lackluster and bizarre performances of his career; Jake Ellenberger and Carlos Eduardo Rocha lost all the momentum they built in an exciting first round; and Rich Franklin and Forrest Griffin fought a sloppy co-main event. (To their credit, my nightmare of hugs and kisses in the Octagon failed to come to fruition.)

I wasn't worried that neither fighter threw a strike in the first minute of the main event. That's something you come to expect in an Anderson Silva fight. When a second minute went by, I started feeling a little antsy. As we headed into the third minute without action, I started to wonder if Dana White had that feeling in his stomach; that his pound-for-pound crown jewel was about to repeat his pattern of erratic behavior.

If you blinked, you missed it. The man who knocked out Tony Fryklund with a back elbow and made Forrest Griffin quit with an anchor punch knocked out Vitor Belfort with a front kick to the face.

The rundown:

Belfort came out looking cautious and tentative from the start. No clue if that was part of his gameplan or if nerves played a part, but he never seemed to feel comfortable.
I know Joe Rogan has a role to play in hyping up fights, but he has to stop telling me that every middleweight that Anderson fights has the perfect makeup to defeat him. First it was Nate Marquardt. Then Dan Henderson. Then Chael Sonnen. Tonight Vitor Belfort. It's becoming a "boy who cries wolf" thing. Hype the guy and his skills all you want, but don't insult my intelligence by slapping the same tag on each villain.
I never jumped on board the "Anderson is aging" train, but tonight's performance shouldn't dismiss that argument either. We can't glean much from 4:30 of a slow-paced fight.
Georges St. Pierre, I desperately need you to defeat Jake Shields. Thanks.
As for the other big news of the evening, I'm not a huge fan of inserting Jon Jones into a title fight with Mauricio Rua. I'd like to see him fight Quinton Jackson or Thiago Silva or Forrest Griffin or Lyoto Machida first. That said, this is an exploitable opportunity for him. We saw what happens when "Shogun's" knees aren't 100%, and Jones is faster, more athletic, and more creative than Forrest Griffin.
It looked like Bader realized pretty early that he didn't have an answer for Jones. Jones, on the other hand, fought with extreme confidence. By the middle of the first round, Jones had Bader reacting to everything he did. That's a bad spot to be in whether you're fighting, playing poker, or involved in some sort of crazy BDSM play.
Jones continues to improve his standup, but I can't quite put my finger on the exact word I would use to describe it. Patient, refined, and sophisticated come close, but not close enough.