Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from TUF 20 Finale, UFC on FOX 13, and WSOF 16
Dec 17, 2014 - 1:00:15 PM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from TUF 20 Finale, UFC on FOX 13, and WSOF 16

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

The TUF 20 Finale, UFC on FOX 13, and WSOF 16 events were all this past weekend. Here's my rundown of the shows.


TUF 20 Finale

GOOD: Jessica Penne vs. Randa Markos

Penne won the split decision in an extremely close fight. I'm not surprised it was a split decision because the last two rounds could easily have gone either way. I think Penne won the first round clearly, but the other two were so close that it was hard to tell where the judges would go. Good fight.

GOOD: Yancy Medeiros submits Joe Proctor

Medeiros caught Proctor with a nice spinning back kick (after being caught with one himself earlier), and that lead to the finish. Proctor was hurting Medeiros early in the first round, but then Medeiros landed that spinning back kick and pounced for the finish. This was a very entertaining fight.

UGLY: K.J. Noons vs. Daron Cruickshank

Cruickshank was winning the fight before it was ruled a No Contest because Noons eyepoked him twice. That's such garbage. Cruickshank should be the winner by Disqualification and Noons should be fined heavily. I'm sick of these guys poking eyes and getting away with it. There's no way anyone could think that was accidental.

The UFC, and MMA in general, needs to do something about this. They need to come down hard on this crap. Cruickshank has to have surgery for this, who knows how long it'll take him to fully recover. You can end a guy's career with an eye poke. The UFC needs to take a no-tolerance approach to it. The first time you poke a guy's eye, the fight is halted and you're disqualified. You're also fined half your purse and suspended for six months. The second time the suspension goes to a full year. I know that's extreme, but it needs to be eradicated from the sport. I don't care exactly how they do it, but they have to get rid of it.

GOOD: Jeremy Stephens vs. Charles Oliveira

There were some bad moments in the fight, but it was mostly good. Both guys stayed pretty busy. Oliveira won the decision, though he lost some points for flopping like a bad soccer player in the third round. That wasn't so good, but he fought pretty well other than that. Stephens looked good as he got out of Oliveira's repeated submission attempts. Fairly good fight.

GOOD: Carla Esparza submits Rose Namajunas

Namajunas started well, but faded badly, and Esparza capitalized in a big way. I thought Namajunas might have been able to stop Esparza early and grind her down, but Esparza was just too good. She was the one to grind Namajunas down before submitting her in the third round. With the win Esparza becomes the inaugural UFC Women's Strawweight Champion. Good fight to cap off a good night of fights.


UFC on FOX 13

GOOD: Matt Mitrione stops Gabriel Gonzaga

This was a fairly good fight. It wasn't as explosive as we've seen in the past, but Mitrione showed good power as he dropped Gonzaga and followed up for the stoppage. He stopped for a second there, but then jumped back in and the ref stepped in.

GOOD: Alistair Overeem stops Stefan Struve

This was another fight that wasn't that explosive, but had a good finish. Overeem took Struve down and worked for the ground-and-pound stoppage, and he got it. It's a nice win for Overeem, though he really came off like an arrogant jerk in the prefight and postfight interviews. Not in the good way, either, where people will pay to see him lose, but in the bad way where everyone will just tell him to shut up because he's gotten his ass kicked in his recent past.

GOOD: Rafael Dos Anjos vs. Nate Diaz

Dos Anjos dominated the entirety of this fight, as he destroyed the lead leg of Diaz with numerous hard kicks. It was hard to watch at times as Diaz gimped his way around the cage. I don't fault RDA for not getting the finish, as Diaz is incredibly tough. He certainly made a huge statement here. I still think that Donald Cerrone should get the next shot at UFC Lightweight Champion Anthony Pettis if he beats Myles Jury next month, but I'm fine with Dos Anjos getting the shot. There was a hilarious moment in this fight in the third round when Dos Anjos was on top and Diaz started pimp-slapping him and talking trash. This pissed RDA off and he unloaded a flurry on Diaz. It's just so ridiculously absurd and hilarious that Diaz would paintbrush a guy who's so thoroughly dominating him. That's as funny as it was ugly seeing the leg of Diaz after taking those legkicks.

GOOD: Junior Dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic

This was another fairly good fight. It wasn't great, but pretty good. JDS won by decision and I agree with that. I think Miocic won the first two rounds and JDS won the last three. Miocic took the fight to JDS and had him off his game, but then JDS dropped Miocic and that changed the momentum entirely. From that point on JDS just controlled things and it became his fight to lose. There were times where it looked like we might see a finish, but this fight also had the feel of inevitability, as it just seemed like a matter of time until JDS won the decision. I don't know if you can have JDS sit out to fight the winner of UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez vs. UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdum, though, because the earliest that fight would be is probably a year from now. I don't know if JDS would want to sit out that long again.


WSOF 16

GOOD/BAD: Lance Palmer submits Rick Glenn

Palmer becomes the new WSOF Featherweight Champion with the win. The GOOD is for the finish, but the BAD is for the fight as a whole. This just wasn't a good fight for the most part. Glenn looked particularly bad as there were times where it looked like he hadn't thrown any real punches in his life. I was more disappointed in this fight than anything else.

GOOD/BAD: Rousimar Palhares submits Jon Fitch

Palhares showed that he's the better fighter, but he also showed the bad side of himself agains, as he held the kneebar on about two seconds too long. I've had several people tell me that he didn't hold it too long, but I've yet to find an angle that shows that. Fitch is tapping and the ref is yelling stop, but Palhares doesn't let go until the ref physically grabs him and pulls him off. That's garbage. I'm not saying WSOF should strip him, but given his history, you can't give Palhares the benefit of the doubt. He has to prove that he's not going to hold submissions too long, and he didn't do that here. His performance in the fight is overshadowed by this, and he has no one to blame but himself.


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