Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC 190 and WSOF 22
Aug 5, 2015 - 1:00:06 PM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC 190 and WSOF 22

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

UFC 190 and WSOF 22 were both this past weekend, let's get right to the rundown.

UFC 190

GOOD: Claudia Gadelha vs. Jessica Aguilar

Gadelha dominated the entirety of this fight. Aguilar was extremely tough, though, and wouldn't go away easily. Gadelha controlled pretty much everything about this fight, as she peppered Aguilar with jabs and busted her open with power strikes. A great performance from Gadelha, who won the decision to set up a fight against UFC Women's Strawweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejzcyk. That's a rematch of a fight that Gadelha lost in a close one, so I'm extremely interested in seeing these two tangle again.


GOOD: Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva stops Soa Palelei

Bigfoot has looked really bad in his last few fights, and it seemed like that might continue during the first round as Palelei did some major damage. In the second round, though, Bigfoot dropped Palelei and poured it on to get the stoppage win. Nice win for Silva.


BAD: Stefan Struve vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

The fight itself was fine, though it was incredibly one-sided. I'm going with a BAD because of how awful Nogueira looked. The first round was pretty close, but then Struve got more confident and started unloading on Nogueira, who's too tough for his own good. Nogueira looked so old and slow that it got sad. He's just taken too much damage over the course of his career, it's time for him to enjoy retirement. He's reached the point where he's taken too much punishment and you worry about his long-term health. I'd like to see the UFC convince him to retire, but so many of these guys keep hanging on that it seems doubtful to happen.


BAD/GOOD: Dileno Lopes vs. Reginaldo Vieira

The fight was mildly entertaining at times but it was also extremely sloppy. I didn't care for it much at all, but one of my friends kind of liked it, so I'll tack on a GOOD at the end. Vieira won the decision to become the TUF Brazil 4 bantamweight winner.


UGLY with a tiny bit of GOOD: Glaico Franca submits Fernando Bruno

I'm only including a tiny GOOD because of the submission, which came with about fifteen seconds to go in the third round. The other fourteen minutes plus was absolute garbage. Franca became the TUF Brazil 4 lightweight winner.


BAD: Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

Nogueira won the first round, then apparently decided to leave a training dummy in his place for the second round, as he did basically nothing. Shogun won the third round and the decision. Nogueira almost finished Shogun in the first so he really cost himself here. I don't know where either guy goes from here. Just not a very good fight.


GREAT: Ronda Rousey stops Bethe Correia

Rousey knocked Correia out cold in about thirty seconds. That's absolutely amazing. Somehow, Rousey is getting better. She's finished her last three opponents in just over a minute combined. Words can't describe how utterly unbelievable that is. She's not catching them by surprise or anything, either. She's not catching them with a lucky shot that ends things early. She's dominating them.

What Rousey has done is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in all my time watching sports. Rousey's career achievements rank up there with some of the best things I've ever seen. She's gone past the first round exactly one time, and even then that was more because Miesha Tate was able to hold on for that long. She has finished all twelve of her opponents. Even more impressive, as if that were possible, is that she has only spent about twenty-five minutes in the cage total during those twelve fights. To go even further, Rousey has finished nine of her twelve fights in under a minute, and had a tenth that was finished in one minute six seconds.

This kind of stuff should not be possible, but Rousey makes it look routine. I don't think it's possible to overstate how impressive and amazing this is. We've seen other fighters dominate a division, but never like this. When you look at guys like Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, and Jon Jones, I don't think their accomplishments are as impressive as Rousey's. I loved Fedor and Silva, I think they're the top two guys ever, but they haven't done what Rousey has done. I know that she hasn't done what they did in some areas, but in others it's not close. Rousey has spent just over five rounds in the Octagon over the course of her career. She's fought twelve times. That blows your mind to consider that. What a way to end the night.


WSOF 22

Marlon Moraes submits Sheymon Moraes

This was a pretty fun fight for Marlon's WSOF Bantamweight Championship. Sheymon is a good striker, but Marlon is super tough and is skilled on the ground so it was an uphill climb for Sheymon. He did pretty good, but Marlon is just a better fighter. Parts of this fight were pretty sloppy, but it was still a good fight. It was a good chance for Marlon to show off his skillset.


UGLY: Roushimar Palhares submits Jake Shields

Shields had a good gameplan, but he gassed out and made a mistake. I'm sure the repeated eye gouges from Palhares didn't help either. Which brings me to...


UGLY: Steve Mazzagatti as a referee

I don't see how Mazzagatti can still be a referee. Palhares blatantly gouged Shields in the eyes several time, and no points were taken, no stoppages allowed, and the fight wasn't stopped. Palhares should have been disqualified after the third gouge, let alone any that came after that. How do you not stop the fight at that point? Mazzagatti should never be allowed to ref another fight in his life. Mazzagatti only warned Palhares about the eye pokes after Shields complained, but then did nothing after Palhares blatantly gouged Shields again.


UGLY: Roushimar Palhares as a fighter

The guy is dirty. It's as simple as that. WSOF is right to strip him of the title, but he should also be fired from the company. He should be banned from the sport. A positive drug test will get you suspended for a few years, but this type of behavior is far worse. I'm sure most fighters, if not all, would rather fight a guy who's been juicing than fight a guy who will purposefully try to injure them. There's no place for this kind of crap in sports. I don't know what his deal is, and quite frankly, I don't care. It doesn't matter the reason, you don't try to intentionally injure your opponent.


UGLY: Palhares apologists

Over the past few years, I've seen a fair amount of people trying to argue that Palhares isn't dirty. Before this fight, they would try to come up with every damn excuse in the world as to why he holds submissions too long, or even try to argue that he doesn't hold them too long. I hope those people feel like fools now. Palhares held his submission on Shields for too long, just as he's done to other guys. Palhares is dirty, he's always been dirty and he will remain dirty. Palhares should be banned from the sport, and all of these apologists should be required to let him put them in a kneebar and see if he holds that too long.


UGLY: WSOF as an organization

WSOF has let this crap slide for far too long, and they've enabled it. They shouldn't have signed him in the first place, but they did because they talked about wanting to give him a chance. Ok, I can buy that, but where they go off the rails is that he's held submissions too long in WSOF without repercussion. I understand that WSOF is in a position where they need publicity and attention, but this isn't the way to get it. WSOF has failed as an organization in this regard, and they haven't done what's best for the fighters. Guys aren't going to want to stay with a company that allows a dirty fighter to go unchecked. It's good that they stripped him, but that's really the only thing they could have done at this point.


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