Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 102, plus Quick Hits
Oct 9, 2013 - 11:15:59 AM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 102, plus Quick Hits

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

Bellator 102 took place last Friday night. Let's get right to it, just as Bellator always gets right to the fights, which I think is awesome. I hate having to sit through 10-15 minutes of mindless banter from the announcers before the fights start.

GOOD: Brennan Ward submits Joe Pachaeo

This is entirely for the submission, which was a nice-looking front choke. The fight itself was lacking up until that point. Pachaeo gassed hard and nothing to offer Ward in the second round. He won the first round, but that became irrelevant after he went unconscious from Ward's choke.

BAD: Mikkel Parlo vs. Jason Butcher

This was an incredibly sloppy fight. You could go to your local bar and see better striking from the drunks at closing time. Parlo won the decision, but he got hit way more than he should have, considering that Butcher isn't a striker.

BAD: Rafael Silva vs. Anthony Leone

This was your basic push. Both guys were evenly matched, but Silva had better takedowns. That won him the boring decision. There wasn't much to this fight, it was pretty dull.

GOOD: Vinicius Quieroz knocks out Lavar Johnson

This only took about 20 seconds or so, but I'm still giving it a GOOD because it was so decisive. Quieroz showed great power as he caught Johnson with that first punch and that basically ended it right there as Johnson face-planted.

UGLY: The first round of Cheick Kongo vs. Mark Godbeer

This sucked, plain and simple. They hugged against the cage almost the entire round. This was just awful, especially for a main event.

GOOD: The second round of Cheick Kongo vs. Mark Godbeer

I separated the rounds because they felt like different fights. I also wouldn't know how to designate the fight as a whole. The first round was horrible, but the second round was pretty good. It wasn't great, but Kongo came out and was much more aggressive on offense. He started laying into Godbeer and got the stoppage win. This is the Kongo we want to see, not the imposter from the first round.

I never rate these Bellator events, even though I rate UFC events. The reason is simple, they would pretty much never get above a 5.0 rating. And to be perfectly honest, I would struggle to give these events above a 3.5 or 4.0 most of the time. I could also see myself going 3.0 or 2.0 or 1.0 or even 0.5 sometimes. That's the problem. On a 10-point scale I would almost never use half of the scale, and that basically negates the use of a rating system. 5.0 is average for me, that means that pretty much all these cards are below average. I can't see myself ever giving a Bellator event a 7.0, let alone anything higher, so why bother with ratings? I want to be a big fan of Bellator, but I just can't do it.

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QUICK HITS

-UFC Fight Night 29 comes to Fox Sports 1 today. The main event is Jake Shields vs. Demian Maia. There's some other interesting fights on the card, but this is one of those Brazil shows where they focus a lot on the home country fighters. I can't complain about that because this is a free card. Back to the main event, Shields vs. Maia could be a really good fight, but it could also be pretty boring. I think Shields utilizes his usual strategy of blanketing a guy, but Maia counters with a nice submission. I'm picking Maia to win because he seems to be a new fighter at welterweight. Regardless of who wins, I'm just hoping for a good fight.

-UFC 166 is coming up on October 19, the main event is UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez defending against Junior dos Santos. My initial thought is that Velasquez wins a much closer decision than their second fight, although I wouldn't be surprised if JDS gets the knockout win. On that same card, Gilbert Melendez fights Diego Sanchez, and I think this will be Fight of the Night. Sanchez always brings it and Melendez will have to match him if he wants to win. I think Melendez wins another close decision. Daniel Cormier vs. Roy Nelson, Shawn Jordan vs. Gabriel Gonzaga, and John Dodson vs. Darrell Montague are on the card as well. I'm a Dodson fan so I'm really looking forward to that fight.

-Roy Nelson has expressed interest in moving down to light heavyweight. If he can make the weight, he should go for it. He's already got good cardio for a man his size, actually being in shape should help that tremendously. I'm not going to go crazy and say he's a title contender right away, but he could work himself there with a few good wins. The division is pretty wide open right now, in terms of who gets a title shot.

-Jon Jones defending his UFC Light Heavyweight title against Glover Teixeira was discussed as possibly being the Super Bowl weekend fight for the UFC, but Dana White has said that it's more likely to come in March 2014 or later. I hope it's as soon as possible so the flow of the division isn't interrupted. I'm not saying this is a Dominick Cruz situation, though. Cruz should have been stripped long ago, the guy's been on the shelf longer than a dented can of fruit cocktail.

-Michael Bisping had to pull out of his fight with Mark Munoz at UFC Fight Night 30 because of an eye injury. He recently posted a pic of what his eye looks like now. It's nowhere near as bad as the pictures of the Krokodil addicts, it's not even in the same ballpark with those pics, but it's still scary nonetheless for him. You don't want to mess with the eyes. I'm not a Bisping fan, but I do hope he's able to get past this.


Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank