CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

John Maguire, UFC on Fuel 2

Picture the scene, if you will. Former TUF finalist DaMarques Johnson has a promising kimura growing ever tighter on British welterweight John Maguire at UFC on Fuel 2 in Stockholm, Sweden. An instant later, Maguire spins, reversing the hold with an armbar and gets the win. Galling for Johnson, sheer eye-popping enjoyment for everyone else. Well, you probably couldn’t get away with being a self-awarded ‘pink belt’ in the specially created ‘gypsy jiu-jitsu’ if you weren’t a bit tasty on the ground.

BEST ELBOWS

Jon Jones, UFC 145

Leading with elbows. That’s what’s up. Ask most coaches and they’ll tell you initiating an attack on a heavy-handed wrestler with a short elbow strike, putting you neatly inside both hook and shooting range, is an unwise decision. Not so for (still) UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones who did the above many times to Rashad Evans in at UFC 145 in Atlanta, both rocking and confusing Evans in the process. How did he get away with it? Because he’s probably a cyborg or something.

NICE TO BE NICE

Brian Stann, UFC on Fuel 2

Evidently middleweight Brian Stann is just as courteous inside the cage as he is outside of it. The well spoken and polite former Marine, who also runs a company that helps military veterans reintegrate with the working world following their service, near enough recoiled in horror when he realized his short ground ‘n’ pound strikes had knocked out UFC on Fuel 2 opponent Alessio Sakara. His job done, Stann halted his assault and allowed referee Marc Goddard to officially stop the contest. We can see it now, The Brian Stann Institute of MMA Etiquette…

SO UPSETTING

Eddie Yagin and Matt Brown, UFC 145

Rashad Evans knocking out Jon Jones in UFC 145’s main event would have been the ultimate upset, but Eddie Yagin and Matt Brown’s decision wins certainly rewrote the critic-suggested script. Yagin’s haymakers topped Mark Hominick’s by-the-book kickboxing for a split decision victory. Only a year prior Hominick had been preparing for what would be a five-round classic against 145lb champ José Aldo in front of 55,000, while Yagin trained for an appearance in Gladiator Challenge. And earlier in the night, highly-tipped and previously undefeated karateka Stephen Thompson was ground out and out grizzled by veteran Brown.

A-OK

Eddie Alvarez, Bellator 66

Even with a tweet of encouragement from star Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish, Japanese compatriot, and MMA grappling poster boy, Shinya Aoki couldn’t overcome Eddie Alvarez at Bellator 66. A rematch of their New Year’s Eve bout from 2008, where Alvarez tapped to a heel hook in round one, Aoki pursued his traditional ‘shoot and wait for opponent to enter guard’ tact to no avail. Unlike in other instances of Aoki’s ‘plan A’, this time his opponent’s hands found his face. By 2:14 of round one, Alvarez was being pushed off a horizontal Aoki, who had been dropped by a right hand and relentlessly punished with fists only moments earlier.

WE BE ROLLIN’

Marcus Brimage and Maximo Blanco, UFC 145

Atlanta’s boo birds didn’t get a finish out of former TUF’er Marcus Brimage and one-time Strikeforce lightweight Maximo Blanco at UFC 145, but they did get an impromptu gymnastics battle. At the conclusion of their final round, Brimage was keen to show up Blanco by mimicking Blanco’s in-fight back tracking with some run miming. With possibly a little something lost in translation, Blanco replied with a flip, and Brimage retorted with a cartwheel and backflip. And on the flip-flopping face-off went. However, inexplicably, the judges only returned a verdict on the fight itself.

MOST EMPHATIC KNOCKOUTS

Michael McDonald and Ben Rothwell, UFC 145

Pretty hard to decide whether young candy-loving Michael McDonald KO’ing Miguel Torres for only the second time in the former WEC champ’s 45-fight career, or a reenergized Ben Rothwell cuffing the talented Brendan Schaub onto queer street was more decisive at UFC 145. On one hand you have McDonald finally finding a home for his right uppercut on the jaw of Torres (who’d lost his mouthpiece for a second time just prior) and fully announcing himself in the bantamweight title picture. Then you have ‘Big’ Ben who’s fought once a year since 2009 and stared down Schaub’s flurry of hooks with one of his own to drop the TUF 10 finalist, finishing him with ground ‘n’ pound and leaving him with an unflattering cross-eyed post-KO expression. There’s nothing in it.

BEST FIGHT

Brad Pickett, UFC on Fuel 2

Since Brad ‘One Punch’ Pickett has more of a penchant for fantastically entertaining brawls and less for one-punch knockouts, perhaps ‘Barnburner’, or something less terrible and more literally applicable might be a better nickname. His thriller against fellow WEC veteran Damacio Page in Sweden was yet another for the Pickett scrap book. Mad scrambles, clubbing hooks, takedown exchanges: these bantamweights showed everything. In the end, Pickett walked away with the second-round submission and his $50,000 ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus. Apparently, it’s actually highly aggressive things that come in small packages.

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