UFC 91 Results:
Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture

Brock Lesnar won the UFC heavyweight championship by TKO’ing the great Randy Couture in the second round. Not bad for a guy competing in his fourth professional MMA fight. Also, Kenny Florian finally earned himself a much-deserved title shot by picking apart Joe Stevenson.

Demian Maia vs. Nate Quarry
In this fight Maia put on a textbook jiu-jitsu clinic against Nate Quarry. Once the fight started it didn’t take long for Demain to get his opponent to the ground. I had hoped Nate would have struggled a bit more to keep the fight standing. I’ll be he wishes he had worked more on staying upright because there was no doubt who had the better submission skills. Once Maia got Nate’s back it was just a matter of time before the finish happened. In terms of ground skills, Demian Maia really seems to be light years ahead of most UFC fighters. I’d like to see him against someone like Dan Henderson, a guy with the wrestling skills to not get put on his back. One would assume Henderson would use the same strategy he used against Rousimar Pallhares. I do like that Maia called out Michael Bisping though because he’s got a great chance at submitting the UFC’s UK Golden Boy. As for Nate Quarry, I feel bad for him. I hope he gets another shot, even though it’s obvious he’ll never challenge Anderson Silva in the remotely near future.

Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks
I didn’t know what to expect from this fight. All I knew about Hendricks was that he trained with Randy Couture and he was making his UFC debut. So, I picked Gonzaga because I knew he had more top-level experience. It looks like I made the smart pick. This fight really showed how much power Gabriel Gonzaga has while standing. The punch he caught Josh with was pretty scary. I couldn’t believe Mazzigatti made him throw an extra punch! Gabe was looking at him thinking “Really? You sure he needs more damage?” Gonzaga may not be an elite striker but he definitely has fight-ending power. I’m sure Josh Hendricks wanted to avoid getting caught in a submission, given Gonzaga’s dangerous ground skills. I don’t really know what to make of Josh Hendricks because we didn’t get a chance to see him do much in this fight. Despite what happened, he seems like a pretty tough guy. As for Gabriel Gonzaga, I look forward to seeing him climb the heavyweight ladder again. I’m sure he would have liked a rematch with Werdum. Perhaps a match with the “Werdum-killer” Junior Dos Santos would be appropriate?

Matt Brown vs. Ryan Thomas
This was a really good back-and-forth war that set the tone for the other prelims shown later on. Thomas was very aggressive, giving Brown all kinds of trouble in the clinch and on the ground. The story of the finish in the second round was Ryan Thomas getting over-zealous. Matt Brown was looking for submissions from the bottom for a while and he finally got a hold of an arm. Thomas, rather than trying a traditional escape opted to slam Brown to the ground. Well, everyone loves to see slams like that. We’re all still hoping to see something along the lines of Rampage vs. Arona from PRIDE. However this fight showed that unless you can knock the guy out cold your slam just makes things worse. Matt Brown even pointed that out in his post-fight interview. I give him big props for holding on to that arm bar. I’d love to see either of these guys fight again

Dustin Hazelett vs. Tamdan McCrory
It should be noted that this fight was originally scheduled to be on the preliminary portion of the card. It doesn’t matter much because they showed every fight tonight because of the high level of awesome finishes. Anyway, on to the fight…Damn, these two nerdy-looking guys can really throw strikes. I thought Tamdan was doing pretty well in this fight and was surprised he went for a takedown. Once on the ground Dustin got to show his freaky jiu-jitsu skills yet again. This was a very good showcase and how to properly execute an omoplata, even though he never got it locked in fully. He basically used it to control Tamdan’s posture and get the arm bar. Joe describes it far better than I can. I’m content to watch a guy like Dustin Hazelett on the ground and say “Yay! That sure looked cool”, albeit sounding far more sophisticated…most of the time. Anyway, it does seem like Hazelett’s quest to get most submission of the night awards will continue as planned. In a fight as fun as this you really can’t say anything bad about the loser. At least, I’m not that cynical. I just think that Tamdan McCrory is once more going to have to work his way up from the prelims.

Jeremy Stephens vs. Rafael dos Anjos
Here we are treated to yet another war from the prelims. This was a great fight. Jeremy had the advantage on the feet, for the most part. However dos Anjos looked very dangerous on the ground. Sure enough he pulled off an even better looking omoplata than what we saw earlier! If it weren’t for the fact that it happened at the end of the round Jeremy Stephens may have shown the first-ever (for me) tap to that particular submission. Anyway, that happened at the end of the first round. The second round was better for Stephens because he didn’t get himself into any major submission trouble. I won’t even try to give the play-by-play but I will say that this was a tough fight to score. Luckily the judges weren’t put into play because we saw a CRAZY uppercut delivered to the head of Rafael dos Anjos. It was one of those shots were you think the guy’s face is going to be permanently disfigured from getting so shaken up by the punch. Just yikes. To put it mildly, Jeremy Stephens was rather pleased with his performance. I thought he was going to jump over the fence and start punching other people’s heads off. Thankfully, that was not to be.

Kenny Florian vs. Joe Stevenson
I’m sure both Kenny and the UFC brass were happy with the result of this fight. After winning so many fights in a row it would have been a shame if Kenny had to lose a fight when he’s so close to a title shot. Even so, he’s still going to have to wait for B.J.’s fight with GSP in January. I think someone should tell B.J. Penn that he does indeed have a belt to defend. Anyway, there’s not too much to say about the fight. It was looking competitive until it went to the ground. I honestly felt that Joe Stevenson could put up a good fight against Kenny Florian in a grappling match but I was wrong. Mr. Florian really has upped his game to a new level. I think he’s got a darn good shot of taking out B.J. Penn, which I don’t say lightly at all. Kenny said he wanted to “kill the master” because he wanted to test himself. Maybe if he can defeat B.J. Mark DellaGrotte can appoint him the rank of Jedi Master. I mean, if Frank Mir had to earn his black belt by submitting Tim Sylvia I don’t think this is too much of a stretch.

Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar
Dear God, I have not seen a crowd so firmly behind one competitor since GSP in Montreal. I will admit that this fight did not go the way I thought it would. Randy Couture didn’t have much trouble with Brock Lesnar’s size. Brock had to work really hard to get the takedown. When he got on top of Randy he wasn’t able to do much damage. Brock Lesnar did catch Randy Couture with some good knees in the clinch. Like I said though he wasn’t able to bully him around like I thought he would. Even though Brock Lesnar probably won the round the crowd was still screaming for Randy Couture. The second round saw more of the two exchanging on the feet. Once again, things look pretty close. What stood out the most to me was the cut that developed above Brock Lesnar’s eye. It was a punch that caused the damage, so it didn’t look like a fight-ending cut. It’s usually knees and elbows that cause the big gushers. The cut certainly wasn’t a “goat’s vagina”, to quote the immortal words of Joe Rogan. Anyway, just as I was getting concerned about Brock, he unloaded a big punch to the side of Randy’s head. Once I saw Randy Couture drop from that I knew the fight was over. Mario gave Randy a lot of time to recover but it was already finished. Brock Lesnar did land some very quick shots on the ground to make sure there was no way Randy Couture could get up. I think Brock Lesnar might have won over the crowd a tiny bit but there was really no way he was getting a positive reaction on this night. For his standards, he was quite respectful in the post-fight interview. As for Randy, we all hope he’ll be back. He certainly didn’t look lost in this fight. I’m pleased to say his age has not caught up to him…yet.

Jorge Gurgel vs. Aaron Riley
That’s right, the show’s still not over! This was the one fight that went to the decision and it ended up being the best one. That’s the sign you’re watching a great show. There’s lots of buzz-words to describe this fight: competitive, back-and-forth, brawl, etc. but nothing quite does it justice. I think it’s made all the more impressive coming from two guys who haven’t had much exposure on recent UFC broadcasts. Jorge Gurgel has been with the UFC for a long time but has been banished to preliminary hell for the past several years. The one thing that I will say about this fight is that Jorge Gurgel is stupid for not utilizing his ground skills. The man is a high-level black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and yet he made no attempt to take the fight to the ground. G’ah! I can’t believe this guy teaches BJJ too! He must tell his students to develop great ground skills, provided they don’t use it in a MMA fight. Well, despite my criticisms these two put on great show and I am very thankful for that. As a result of Gurgel’s stubbornness Aaron Riley was able to walk away with a decision victory.

Mark Bocek vs. Alvin Robinson
Bocek proved in this match that he is not only a great wrestler but a decent submission fighter too. Though, Alvin Robinson managed to hang on to the third round before tapping out. Mark Bocek was in control for pretty much the entire fight. He’ll have to put on another dominating performance before getting a chance to rise up in the stacked lightweight division. Plus, your champion only defends his belt once in an odd while so you’ve always got lots of would-be contenders. For what it’s worth, I’m actually a fan of B.J., at least on a perverse level. I’ll always have a soft spot for a guy who acts like a jerk and doesn’t know it. Actually, B.J. Penn is seldom a jerk but he’s often cocky. So, I’m just saying you should take care of some of the contenders before challenging the king of the welterweight division! Anyway, this was a good fight but I think a lot of the PPV audience was distracted at this point in the show given what happened in the main event. It’d be nice if it were easier for them to save the main event for the very end but that would only work if they knew how long the fight was going to last…and that would mean the fight was fixed! Which of course it can’t be because this isn’t WWE. Wait a minute, who’s our champion now? That WWE guy Brock Lesnar? Hmm…

It will be very interesting to see how the UFC does with its new champion, Brock Lesnar. I read online today that Brock Lesnar’s win has been covered by a lot of media outlets. For us UFC fans, that’s a good thing. Lesnar’s reign as champion will help bring this company even more mainstream attention. The crossover audience from the WWE targets the coveted young male demographic, which is a plus. It doesn’t hurt that this was one the best shows the UFC has ever done. Right now, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about show and the company in general. I just hope that the ridiculously stacked PPV in December can live up to this one!

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