Penick's Take
THE HIT LIST: Top rated fights, standout finishes, and more from UFC Fight Night's 53 and 54
Oct 5, 2014 - 10:15:33 PM THE HIT LIST: Top rated fights, standout finishes, and more from UFC Fight Night's 53 and 54

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The star rating system we use here at MMATorch is essentially a short hand, easy way to subjectively let our readers know whether a fight stands out as something better than average, if it falls into the large segment of indelibly skippable fights, or if it reaches the depths of the downright awful. To that end, it's a quick way to look through our event reports and see whether or not you've missed something worth watching from an event if you don't catch it live.

That brings us to this new feature, The Hit List, where we'll run through the rated fights from televised prelims or main cards to let you know in an even quicker recap what's worth watching from each event, and what we had to say in the event report. Occasionally, an undercard fight will stand out as particularly noteworthy or exciting, though fights on the un-televised portion of UFC cards typically don't get rated. In that instance, we'll let you know what we feel is worth watching from those fights in a special section.

So in this feature, we'll highlight the top rated fights of the weekend, the not yet rated fights you should check out, and the top highlight reel finishes. The new feature will kick off today with a look at the best from UFC Fight Night 53 and 54 from Saturday night.


Weekend's Top Rated

Rory MacDonald def. Tarec Saffiedine (UFC Fight Night 54)

Star Rating: (***+)

Shawn Ennis says: Nothing too intense going on for the first couple of rounds, but the finish was a thing of beauty.

Jamie Penick says: This was a breakout type performance after some setbacks to his standing in the division, and him getting that title fight next certainly seems a reasonable option.


Max Holloway def. Akira Corassani (UFC Fight Night 53)

Star Rating: (***)

Penick says: Fantastic performance yet again from Holloway. Started a bit slow, then came on strong, and when he had Corassani hurt he didn't let up. That's four straight stoppage wins since dropping decisions to Dennis Bermudez and Conor McGregor back to back.


Mike Wilkinson def. Niklas Backstrom (UFC Fight Night 53)

Star Rating: (***-)

Penick says: Shocking upset win here, and a nasty KO to boot. He ate a front kick to the face - the second one he took flush to the face - and landed the KO blow. Backstrom let his guard down and got caught in the worst way possible.


Raphael Assuncao def. Bryan Caraway (UFC Fight Night 54)

Star Rating: (***-)

Ennis says: Solid fight for Assuncao, and a good primer for what he can do heading into a potential title fight after Dominick Cruz.


Mitch Gagnon def. Roman Salazar (UFC Fight Night 54)

Star Rating: (***-)

Ennis says: Nice choke by Gagnon after doing what he had to do in order to get into position. Not much more to it. Good stuff.


Unrated Highlights

Dennis Siver def. Charles Rosa

Penick says: If you [weren't] watching this... live, go back and find this on UFC Fight Pass. It was a massively entertaining fight with crazy ground scrambles and one hell of a gutsy and poised performance from Rosa on a week's notice against a longtime vet. Siver was still too much for him, but he made an excellent showing for himself, and kept fighting and looking for openings until the end. So much fun.


Chris Kelades def. Patrick Holohan (UFC Fight Night 54)

Ennis says: Holohan took the first round, but Kelades came storming back to out grapple and batter Holohan for the next ten minutes. Excellent performance, especially considering that he took the fight on four days notice. Excellent fight.


Highlight Reel Finishes

-Pedro Munhoz def. Jerrod Sanders via submission (guillotine choke) (UFC Fight Night 54)

-Albert Tumenov def. Matt Dwyer via KO (head kick) (UFC Fight Night 54)

-Olivier Aubin-Mercier def. Jake Lindsey via Submission (Inverted Triangle/Kimura) (UFC Fight Night 54)

-Zubaira Tukhugov def. Ernest Chavez via TKO (UFC Fight Night 53)

-Mairbek Taisumov def. Marcin Bandel via TKO (UFC Fight Night 53)

-Jan Blachowicz def. Ilir Latifi via TKO (UFC Fight Night 53)


This feature is a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions on what you might like to see added in future installments, email me at MMATorchEditor@gmail.com with the subject header "Hit List Feedback" to give us your thoughts.