Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 118; Thoughts on Nelson-Hunt and eye pokes
May 7, 2014 - 11:50:42 AM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 118; Thoughts on Nelson-Hunt and eye pokes

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

Bellator 118 took place last Friday on Spike TV. Here's the rundown:

Bellator 118

GOOD: Liam McGeary stops Mike Muticelli

Not a whole lot to this one. McGeary caught Muticelli with a hard left that ended things fast. I think it only took like 20 seconds.

GOOD: Marcus Galvao vs. Thomas Vasquez

A lot of groundwork in this one. Both guys tried fairly hard here so I can't complain. It wasn't the most exciting fight, but it was pretty good. Galvao took the decision.

GOOD: Andrey Koreshkov stops Justin Baesman

Koreshkov landed a crazy flying knee to end things. That was pretty sweet. Baesman was knocked out instantly. It was pretty spot-on.

GOOD/BAD/UGLY: Joe Warren vs. Rafael Silva

The fight itself was fine, I would probably put it in the GOOD category. It was kind of iffy, as the championship rounds dragged, but I give both guys credit for grinding through.
Now, the BAD comes from the fact that Warren talked so much trash before the fight that he was going to crush Silva, who took the fight on extremely short notice and didn't have a camp, and still had to grind out a decision.

The UGLY comes from Warren's pre-fight trash talk. I'm so sick and tired of these guys talking all this stuff and then hugging it out after the fight. It's such an insult to our intelligence. You can count the number of people who fall for it on one hand. I understand the need to sell a fight, but when you see these guys talk about how much they hate each other and are going to smash the other one, then hug after the fight and act like friends, it just becomes so much noise. It makes the sport look bad. You don't see guys in other sports doing this.

Warren also gets dinged because he talks an awful lot compared to what he's done. Now, I'm not going to say he's anywhere near as bad as Conor McGregor is when it comes to that; McGregor talks more trash than guys who have accomplished ten times what he has. I understand both guys have won titles in the organizations they've been in, but this stuff just makes them look bad. They probably don't care, but they should.

*************

Roy Nelson vs. Mark Hunt is being targeted and there's talk of the UFC wanting to have the fight in Japan. First off, I think that's that wrong way to go as this fight should be on one of the UFC's Fox cards. The UFC needs to start putting better and more exciting fights on their Fox cards. They need to quit treating those cards like every other Fight Night card. They only have four of these cards a year, they need to make them special.

Secondly, as to the fight itself, I think this is a great fight. Neither guy is near a title shot right now, but this is almost guaranteed to be about as exciting as you can hope for in the heavyweight division. They're both power-punchers with iron chins who keep coming forward. You can't ask for much more.

*************

Dana White recently said that the eye-poking that Jon Jones does has to stop. I definitely agree with that, but I'm not sure how to stop it. Do you fine guys for eye pokes? Suspend them? The refs are supposed to take points away, but they rarely do. I think the UFC should convene a meeting of a group of ex-fighters, maybe some doctors, MMA fans, etc. to try to come up with a solution for this. There's got to be a way to deal with this that doesn't involve adjusted gloves or something crazy like that.


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