...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia showed former "World's Strongest Man" competitor Mariusz Pudzianowski what a real MMA fight is like on Saturday night in Boston at the Moosin: God of Martial Arts pay-per-view, and the Polish fighter wanted nothing to do with it.
After an early takedown was successful, Pudzianowski failed to keep Sylvia on the ground. The fight then became all Sylvia, as he connected on a combination and turned the atmosphere of the fight. Pudzianowski began backing up, and Sylvia pushed the pace of the fight for the rest of the round.
He landed combinations and a series of knees in the Thai clinch to Pudzianowski. As he continued the beating in the first round, Pudzianowski increasingly became more uncomfortable in the cage, and Sylvia continually pressed the action. It was a completely one sided beating in the first round.
The second saw more of the same, as Sylvia fought off a clinch from Pudzianowski before landing some more hard knees and punches. Pudzianowski then simply dropped to the ground with no blow forcing him there, and after a couple of kicks to the legs Sylvia dropped down to side control. He landed some short forearm shots, then moved to side control on the other side and threw a couple of punches to the face of Pudzianowski. As soon as the first punch landed, Pudzianowski was done and began to tap to the strikes.
The win gives Sylvia a 1-1 record in freakshow fights after his embarrassing knockout loss to Ray Mercer last year.
Penick's Analysis: It wasn't pretty, but it was effective. Pudzianowski had no business really being in there with a former Champion, and the out of shape Sylvia did what should have been expected. It was good for Sylvia to get a win, but this performance in no way means he's on his way back to being a contender. There were some calls after the fight that "He's Back!", but that's just not the case. He fought a guy who had two previous fights and who wanted nothing to do with getting hit in the face. As soon as Sylvia landed a hard combination in the first round Pudzianowski started backing up, and then he straight up quit when Tim got side control in the second. It was a fight Sylvia needed to win, and he did, convincingly. But it still says nothing about his future as a fighter, and he needs to show people that he can come into a fight in shape, and get back down to the heavyweight limit, before anyone will take his calls for a UFC return or Strikeforce run seriously.
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
