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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor
Bellator 113 and UFC Fight Night 38 were this past week. Let's get right to it.
Bellator 113
BAD: Tim Welch vs. Derek Campos
Campos dominated the entire fight. It was a total mismatch. I go BAD here because Campos should have put Welch away. That he didn't, even though he so clearly dominated the fight, puts it in BAD territory.
GOOD: Marcin Held submits Rodrigo Cavalheiro
Held with a tremendous leg lock submission. The fight was pretty short, but that was a slick submission. That's high-level stuff there.
GOOD: Derek Anderson stops Brandon Girtz
Anderson landed an awesome knee to finish things. This was a replay of an earlier fight, but it definitely deserves mention here. Very cool finish.
GOOD: Patricky Freire stops David Rickels
This was a very close fight until the finish, a huge knockout by Freire. These guys were battling back and forth in the first round and then Pitbull ended it with some monster strikes. Damn impressive win for Freire.
UGLY: Attila Vegh vs. Emmanuel Newton
This fight sucked. It was horrible. Having to sit through five rounds of this crap probably made the crowd want to walk out. I wish they had. The fact that this was a championship fight is unbelievable. Newton "won" by decision, though he should be stripped of the title immediately. That's just embarrassing.
UGLY: Chuck Wolfe during Gallemore-Brown
The fact that Vegh vs. Newton wasn't the worst thing of the evening tells you a lot about how bad this next one is, because that fight was horrible. On the prelims there was a fight between Daniel Gallemore and Fredrick Brown. Gallemore staggered Brown against the cage and dropped him. He continued striking unimpeded. Brown flopped onto his back, and still the damn ref wouldn't step in. Finally, after over a dozen unneeded strikes the ref stepped in. That ref's name is Chuck Wolfe, and he's horrible at his job. In his line of work that means people can get seriously hurt.
I don't know if this is the worst stoppage ever or not, but I know it ranks up there for sure. The announcers didn't like it, and I'm glad they said as much. Whether it was the worst stoppage or not, it was indefensible. How is this guy allowed to ref? You could seriously throw a ref shirt into the crowd and find someone better qualified to ref fights than Chuck Wolfe based on that performance. I've got plenty of off-color jokes here, but I doubt they'd make print so I better not say them. This was just about as UGLY as it gets.
UFC Fight Night 38
GOOD: Fantastic Finishes
There were several really good finishes on this card. On the prelims, Kenny Robertson submitted Thiago Perpetuo with a nice rear-naked choke, Jussier Formiga submitted Scott Jorgensen with a rear-naked choke of his own, Thiago Santos stopped Ronny Markes with a beautiful body kick leading to the stoppage, and Godofredo Pepey stopped Noad Lahat with a perfect flying knee for the new front runner for "Knockout of the Year." Seriously, that knee was sick and right on the button.
Then, on the main card you had Rony Jason getting a questionable stoppage win over Steven Siler, but Jason still had some nice striking he was showing off. And finally, you had C.B. Dollaway stopping Cezar Ferreira early with some hard shots. That's six finishes right there, not even counting the main event. That makes for a good night of fights.
BAD: Michel Prazeres vs. Mairbek Taisumov
Taisumov got deducted a few points over the course of the fight, but never seemed to care. Prazeres showed he was the much better fighter, as he took the decision
GOOD: Fabio Maldonaldo vs. Gian Villante
Villante took the first round, but gassed badly. In the second and third rounds, Maldonaldo lit up Villante with a bunch of power shots. I don't know how Villante didn't get knocked out. He's got a granite chin. Maldonaldo won by decision.
UGLY: Francimar Barroso vs. Hans Stringer and Leonardo Santos vs. Norman Parke
Barraso vs. Stringer was on the prelims while Santos vs. Parke was on the main card. Both fights were horrible, and both fights didn't belong on a UFC card. Just awful fights.
GOOD: Dan Henderson stops Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
Henderson was almost stopped in the first, but ref Herb Dean didn't step in. You could make an argument that he should have, as we've seen fights stopped earlier than that. I think it would have been an OK stoppage if it did end there, but whatever. Henderson almost got stopped again in the second round, this time not nearly as close, though. It all came back to haunt Shogun in the third, though, as Hendo mushed his face in with a powerful right. It was a crazy fight. It was a great capper to a very good night of fights.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank
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