Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 124, UFC Fight Night 51, and WSOF 13
Sep 18, 2014 - 11:15:25 AM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from Bellator 124, UFC Fight Night 51, and WSOF 13

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

Bellator 124, UFC Fight Night 51, and World Series of Fighting 13 all took place this past weekend. Let's break it all down!


Bellator 124

GOOD: Ryan Couture submits Tommy Bagnasco
Bagnasco came in on short notice, and it showed. Couture is the better fighter, and he demonstrated that here, getting the submission three minutes in.

GOOD/BAD: L.C. Davis vs. Zeilton Rodrigues

This fight was just OK. I don't want to go full on GOOD, but I can't really go BAD, either. There were some good parts and some bad. Both guys tried, that's about the best I can say here.

GOOD/GREAT: Liam McGeary submits Kelly Anundson

The fight as a whole was GOOD, but the submission McGeary pulled off was GREAT. It came out of nowhere.

GOOD: Emmanuel Newton stops Joey Beltran

You can argue that Beltran shouldn't have been in this title fight, and you'd mostly be right. I'm willing to give Bellator a pass on this, though, because they just wanted to give Newton a fight. It'll take time to shift away from the tournament format and get things on a regular schedule.

You also can't blame Newton for fighting cautiously. Beltran may not be a top contender, but he's more than capable of ending the fight with a few shots. Newton didn't want to screw things up, so he started slowly before ending the fight with a great spinning back fist in the third round.


UFC Fight Night 51

GOOD: Jessica Andrade submits Larissa Pacheco

This was totally one-sided, with Andrade submitting Pacheco in about thirty seconds. That was pretty impressive.

GOOD: Iuri Alcantara vs. Russell Doane

This was another fight that was fairly good. Alcantara took the decision in a pretty close fight. I think it helped having friends here because it helped with some of the slower parts of the fight.

GOOD: Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Wendell Oliveira

Ponzinibbio ended things early with a good flurry. It took not quite a minute and a half. He had gotten rocked himself, though, as Oliveira gave some good shots of his own.

GOOD: Leonardo Santos vs. Efrain Escudero

This fight was slow and pretty dull. Things never seemed to get going. Santos won the decision.

BAD: Gleison Tibau vs. Piotr Hallman

There were actually some pretty good moments in this fight, but there was more bad stuff. It made you wonder why the whole fight wasn't like that. At times Hallman seemed to be sleepwalking. Tibau won the split decision.

GOOD: Andrei Arlovski stops Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva

Arlovski looked completely different in this fight than he did in his last one, a horribly boring decision win over Brendan Schaub. He looked sharp and active and his punches were on point. Bigfoot didn't look very good in this fight, to be honest. He looked slow and lethargic. Arlovski ended things with some power shots. He's not in the title picture by any means, but the division is so shallow that it's possible that another win starts getting people talking about Arlovski fighting for a title shot. It's kind of crazy that this is true, but such is life.


World Series of Fighting 13

BAD/GOOD: Tom Marcellino vs. Frankie Perez

This was pretty one-sided. Marcellino showed some good toughness, but this was all Perez. He won the decision with relative ease. This was too one-sided for my taste.

BAD/GOOD: Isaiah Chapman vs. Timur Valiev

Another one-sided fight. Valiev took the clear decision. Not much to say other than that. These one-sided fights get kind of old to watch, though.

BAD/GOOD: Ozzy Dugulubgov stops Keon Caldwell

Dugulubgov got the explosive finish early in the third round with a spectacular counter. Up until that point, the fight was very dull. The finish was awesome, but the other eleven minutes were very miss-able. Do yourself a favor and just watch the highlights.

GOOD: Marlon Moraes submits Cody Bollinger

Bollinger was game, but Moraes is the better fighter. He showed a lot of patience in picking his spots. In the second round, Moraes knocked Bollinger down and worked towards a smooth submission. It was really nice and again showed what Moraes can do on the ground. This was a good win for Moraes.


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